Journey Cafe

The trapezoidal outline of a 35-square-metre plot, together with the L-shaped staircase on the trapezoid’s shorter side that binds the floors together, can be regarded as the defining structure of the project. The principal strategy may be understood as the division of this structure into two entirely separate cores that shape the spaces of host and guest.

The project received a special Honorable Mention at the 25th Memar Award "for its conscious attention to the quality of urban space in a small-scale project, and for extending this perspective from the public realm to interior connecting spaces, all the way to activating the roof as an open urban courtyard. The result is the formation of a coherent whole that makes spatial and social continuity possible from sidewalk to rooftop." Nasrin Seraji praised its spatial programming as "the most intelligent design we saw — expanding the concept of a cafe into a place for study, rest, children's play, and social interaction. Instead of a house, it creates a shared urban space."