Words STUDIO JAN and MOKO SPACE
Editing The Kanto team
Images Studio Fieldworks and JM Avenido (Deuces Coffee)
Sitting just across Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3, Newport World Resorts evokes transience as an urban threshold, a place where the local and the foreign have long held an easy, unself-conscious adjacency. Busy casino floors, a theater, and the constant low din of international transit just across the road, Newport is adept at handling arrivals and departures. We saw an opportunity for a space that responds similarly but at a quieter pace.
Deuces Coffee’s earlier branches at Perea St., SM Aura, and Alabang had been built around the open, light-filled ease of a young brand finding its identity: soft curves, pastel palettes, spaces that wore their energy openly. For the 72-sqm space at Newport, we felt a call towards maturation and patina, a room enriched by time, a gathering place grounded enough to feel genuinely local and open enough to feel legible to someone passing through for the first time.
We had been holding a reference in reserve: the unhurried, tactile atmosphere of an old mahjong salon, a room heavy with the whiff of stories told and waiting to be written. It had come up in an earlier project, and when Deuces Coffee Newport presented itself, we understood immediately that this was where it belonged. The café sits on a third-floor precipice facing the glass-roofed mall atrium, with all seating favoring this view. More than half of the retail space is dedicated to the kitchen and the bar counter, which serves as the café’s “façade.”
Rather than leaving the Deuces pastels behind, we deepened them, with merlot and rust emerging from the same base, shades burnished by time. Low walls were finished in textured plaster from Pieni Surfaces, and Novacolor finishes shift with the light through the day, giving the surfaces that tactile richness that accumulates in rooms that have been lived in.
“We had been holding a reference in reserve: the unhurried, tactile atmosphere of an old mahjong salon, a room heavy with the whiff of stories told and waiting to be written.”
We devoted considerable attention to the shopfront tableau anchored by the C-shaped central counter. Tracing the arched perimeter of the plan, it is clad in repurposed wooden balusters sourced from craftsmen in Pila, Laguna, and underwent five rounds of revisions with our carvers. The form began ornate, layered with rings and rich detail, which we pared back incrementally; a ring removed, a curve simplified at each pass, until it reached a form that is clean and “essential”. Arranged in an unbroken sequence along the curved counter, the balusters communicate what it was and what it now is; against the placeless transience of everything surrounding the space, the counter offered something firmly anchored and specifically Filipino.
Overhead, a trumpo-shaped capiz fixture by JM Avenido for Keka Object, produced with Senseware, hovers wide above the counter. As a material, capiz has a long history of travel and has been associated with Filipino homes and household accessories for centuries. The pearlescent, luminous shimmer of the fixture creates a striking contrast with the burgundy walls, is a bold, sculptural exploration of a traditional material, and is a tribute to Filipino childhood games.
Working with brand identity studio Public School Manila, we produced a mahjong tile-inspired sign above the counter that depicts the game’s visual vernacular: flowers, characters, and intricate patterns. This ode to mahjong felt right for our location. While of Chinese origin, it is a game that has traveled far and wide, carried across diasporas as one that allows both logic and chance to dialogue through the dance of its ivory tiles. It is not unlike the experience of grabbing coffee alone to decompress, or letting the conversation with a newly made friend over the counter wash over you.
The mall lease conditions were strict; no structural coring was permitted, and with the high-intensity use expected for the space, we had to negotiate many constraints carefully. We raised a platform behind the counter to house the bar’s drainage and services, while keeping the counter floor level with the customer side. We wanted the baristas and guests to share the same eye line, a small design decision that changes the character of the customer interaction entirely, making the exchange feel less transactional and more like a conversation. The al fresco seating beyond occupies a narrow balcony facing the glass-roofed atrium, accessed through a separate entrance; a square aperture cut into the shared wall at counter level connects the two zones, so that the order finds the guest rather than the other way around.
It has been a year since Deuces Coffee Newport opened. The materials have found time to settle, the space has found its soul in the staccato rhythm of coffee grounds and filling cups, and the patina we yearned for is being earned day by day. For a location that has always been about movement, we are glad to have made something worth pausing for. •
Project Team
Architects: JM Avenido, Sam Soliven
Studio: STUDIO JAN x MOKO SPACE
General Contractor: PMTC Management Consultancy
Key Suppliers
Lantern-001: Keka Object (Design by JM Avenido), produced by Senseware
Wall Plasters and Surface Finishes: Pieni Surfaces
Wooden Balusters (repurposed): Antigong Kahoy
Additional Suppliers: Euroasia, 24/7 Signs
