Casa Luker
The Chocolate Dream
Cheers to breaking conventions, embracing flavor, and raising a glass to the art of brewing. Elevate your palate!
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How it started
The Chocolate Dream holds a very special place in our story. It's the project that confirmed our belief at JellyShot: through design, we can regenerate and create sustainable, tangible impact.
Our journey began in 2018 alongside Sergio Restrepo, who at the time was leading the project. The challenge was big: Luker had recently acquired a cacao agroforestry farm in Necoclí, Antioquia, surrounded by three communities facing deep social struggles violence, poverty, and lack of opportunities. At the same time, Luker’s international clients wanted to visit the farm and live a true “cacao experience.”
Our Goal
Our first step was simple: visit the farm, walk the land, and map out the key points and stories that could shape powerful experiences.
The idea was to design a journey that not only showcased the beauty of cacao but also revealed the social and environmental impact behind every product.
The Result
What began as a simple field visit quickly transformed into something much bigger. As we immersed ourselves in the territory, we realized this project was not just about routes or farm tours, but about building reciprocal relationships between Luker, local communities, and international clients. Together we set out to:
1. Redefine the experience around shared value.
We created spaces, moments of contemplation, and opportunities for exchange where knowledge, empowerment, and culture flow in both directions. This experience came to life through 17 actions, several of which required the creation of new spaces and ecosystems to make them possible.
2. Celebrate the territory.
Through the design of experiences that honor ecosystems, traditions, and community wisdom, we showed consumers the real impact of their purchasing decisions.
3. Bring Cocohabs to Life.
In collaboration with Eblé Studio, we conceived the Cocohabs: spaces designed for collective living and interdisciplinary research, with the purpose of fostering sustainable and conscious growth. For their “temporary residents,” they represent an immersion into the origin of cacao, an experience that unites transformation, sustainability, and social innovation.
The design of these spaces is inspired by the cacao flower. Built with local materials and guided by sustainability principles, the Cocohabs are also a process of community training and knowledge exchange. An on-site sawmill allows for the transformation of wood from felling to furniture-making, while expert carpenters train farmers in every stage of the process, sharing skills and strengthening local capacities.
4. Build a Community Innovation Center: The next step was to bring to life a space for gathering: a community innovation center. More than a physical structure, it is a place where volunteers, companies, clients, farmers, and communities come together to learn, co-create, and explore new possibilities, with the farm as its stage. It serves as a platform for social transformation, cultural immersion, and research, responding to the needs and opportunities of all actors while offering effective, long-term solutions for rural communities that live from cacao.
In partnership with Eblé Studio, every corner was designed and built with local materials, turning the construction itself into a living laboratory. Carpenters and farmers worked side by side, transforming wood into a center of innovation, turning dreams into shared learning, and opening pathways to new skills, trades, and opportunities that endure long beyond each structure.
The Chocolate Dream is more than just a project, it’s proof that design can connect people, places, and purpose. And since 2018, it has continued to grow as a space where sustainability and community empowerment go hand in hand.
Nominated for the Colombian Architecture Biennial, this project embodies the essence of The Chocolate Dream.
Learn more about its architecture and story here.
