Maggie's Farm Pizza
$0.00IOWA CITY, IOWA
2016
BUILT
2500 SQ. FT.
Enveloped by the red angular ribs that unfolds like origami, this space is modelled on the barn used as a graphical symbol for this Pizza restaurant. This barn is nestled in the restaurant owner’s farmstead growing all the fresh ingredients used for making pizzas.
Barn profile, mirrored and flipped on two opposite ends is morphed to create a conceptual mass. It is divided into 46 individually shaped, 2-ply, stained plywood ribs spaced at every 16 inches- echoing framing of the barn. Two entries to the restaurant emerge as an axis to divide public seating from working space. Center “stage” is the wood-fired pizza oven. It is housed in a blackened steel panel volume with pronounced stainless steel ribs - an abstraction of board and batten siding. Oven is accentuated by the forced symmetry of the vertical wine storage elements on either side.
All the components have a narrative function, most notably the ribs, which energetically moves within the bare and basic concrete and drywall environment while hiding the open ducts, plumbing, sprinklers and electrical elements. Vertical supports of the ribs frame burlap-faced acoustical panels and light boxes. Pronounced burlap and wood textures help create a relaxed environment within a vivid experience.
Menu boards, menu cards, graphics and photographs were part of our services. Evocative and abstracted photographs of vegetables picked from owner’s farm articulate the “Freshness” of the pizza and subliminally tell a story of design concept, governed by the geometry that we discovered in “mirroring” the barn forms.
This project, two gourmet experiences fuse in one- food and architecture.
