Architects:SAD Office & AMA Studio

Area:36m²

Year:2023

Photographs:Mohammad Soroosh Jooshesh COMO photography studio

Lead Architects:SAD Office & AMA Studio

Design Team:ALi SadeghGoli, Ali Shafigh

Technical Team:Mohammad JAvad Nateghi

City:Isfahan

Country:Iran

Text description provided by the architects. Pergas Cafe is located in the busy Armenian neighborhood of Jolfa, Isfahan, and the location of the property has its potential. The presence of a parking lot on the eastern side and the neighborhood with Jolfa Hotel and Church Vank is an opportunity to revive a small 36-meter shop located in one of the most important urban plazas of Isfahan.

Although we are usually faced with a specific spatial typology in cafes and restaurants. They are located on the edge of the main street, all their windows are closed, and they contain a service space, and they serve customers through only one window. One of our main concerns in this project is to change the cafe window and create an expectation to remove the boundary between the inside and outside space, organize the sales and cafe space, and move the service department and warehouse to the back.

Other issues in the design of this project were divided into several main categories:

With these descriptions, the main question of the design team was how the project could be placed in a part of the urban space (urban plaza) while solving the mentioned concerns. By creating visual continuity in the urban body, a distinction in the structure of typology and morphology of the urban bed is created, and passers-by are invited to its inner space.

Therefore, we decided to design a box that would install new partitions with minimal interference to the existing partitions. At the same time, it allowed us to use the micro-spaces and the service sector as much as possible with the intermediate spaces it provided.

Due to the existence of two main sections (store and cafe), we also created the existing box in two sections, which, while having different uses, were unified by the same color and one hand mirror. The presence of mirrors in the body and ceiling was designed not only for the coherence of the space but also to create a new dimension. Also, the presence of this element in business spaces plays a significant role in advertising and attracting customers.

Project gallery

Project location

Address:Isfahan, Iran