Café Metro
Name: Metro Cafe
Location: Hafez Bulv. Mashhad, Iran
Architecture Firm: Pi Architects
Architect in charge: Hosein Ebrahimzadeh
Design Associates: Ayoob Abootorabi
Date: 2016
Site area: 106 sqm
Type: Interior Design
Civil engineer: Mohammad Ebrahimzadeh
Construction: Pi Architects
Graphic: Zahra Ebrahimzadeh
Photographer: Saeed Maleki
Client: Mr.Vojdani
“I want it to be a bright place; a place that lets the breakfast give a real buzz”. It was in these sentences that the client summarised for us his vision about the design of his cafe. Since having breakfast is traditionally a domestic affair in our native culture, we strove to incorporate domestic forms into the cafe environment. Going out for breakfast is still regarded a luxurious practice, therefore it seemed essential for it to allude users to the most iconic element of luxurious spaces, i.e., arch. To achieve such effect, it was decided to reduce arch down to its basic structural lines, hence develop an innovative economically feasible form.
The functional separation between kitchen and seating yielded a homogeneous hall space that had its own problems, specifically the lack of privacy for the tables. A major restriction in providing such privacy was the Office of Public Spaces’ strict law that prohibits blocking outside-to-inside view of public spaces by any obstruction. Therefore, it was decided to include a transparent structure which proved to satisfy a lot of requirements, namely, providing privacy for seats without violating outside-to-inside visibility, and the owner’s interest in putting tables outside. In fact, the outer arch would intensify the sense of ownership of the sidewalk and would make it possible to control flow of light by netted shaders. A large part of cafe life in fact is spent during evening and night. Westward orientation of the light absorbent wall allowed us to adorn the charm of the space with the romantic mood of the sunset; however it was done with filtering the west light in order to prevent inconvenience.
