Foreword
The use of Russian wood and indirect lighting with blue-neon tubes is the principal device behind the appeal of the Blue Bottle coffee shop. This manner of design has succeeded in creating a calm, private space and an intimate corner for friendly conversation.
Blue Bottle, in the Milad-e-Noor shopping centre (Shahrak-e-Gharb, Tehran), is the work of a young architect, Engineer Alireza Mashhadi Mirza, an architecture graduate (Dey 1379, December 2000) of the Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran. Design and execution proceeded together and took about four months.
Successive timber frames and a linear blue neon
Successive timber frames stride through the shop; the gradually decreasing height of the frames forms the sloping ceiling of the coffee shop. The wood-joint connections are concealed, without visible bolts or screws. Between the frames and the wall, a linear blue-neon strip is fitted; its reflected light brings out the bright tone and the texture of this wood.
The glass and bottle holders are all made of clear plexiglass. The cup-holder element above the counter, together with its glasses, sparkles like a small crystalline pendant. The use of such elements relieves the uniformity of the wholly timber-clad space of the coffee shop.
Outdoor signboard
The textured ground behind the outdoor signboard is built from cross-cut blocks of wood, layered together. On it, the letters Blue Bottle in blue neon catch the eye; the Persian counterpart, baatri-ye aabi, has been left blank above.
Project credits
Client: Mr Madadi. Wood work: Ali Ayoubi. Metal work: Mehrdad Ansari. Plexiglass work: Saeed Foghani. Sign-board neon work: Abbas Fatemi. Electrical: Daryoosh Naghdi. Photographs: Habibeh Majdabadi.