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MIKA PINE
MIKA PINE
Tehran, Iran
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Other Projects by L.E.D Architects
MIKA PINE
Tehran, Iran
Firm
Type
STATUS
Under Construction
YEAR
2028
SIZE
100,000 sqft - 300,000 sqft
BUDGET
$10M - 50M
MIKA PINE was born from a radical question: what if the future of food destinations is not retail with restaurants, but a new urban experience where food, culture, social interaction, and city life become inseparable?
Located in Kaj Square, one of Tehran’s most vibrant urban centers, the 23,000-square-meter project began as a conventional retail development. However, during the research and concept phase, our team challenged the original brief. Through analysis of changing consumer behavior, evolving urban lifestyles, and the economic realities of contemporary Iran, it became clear that traditional retail was no longer the most relevant response to the site or its users.
Instead of designing another shopping center, we fundamentally redefined the program and proposed an entirely new typology: EAT.MEET.SHOP.
The concept is based on a simple observation. Today's urban consumers increasingly seek experiences rather than transactions. They value quality over quantity, discovery over accumulation, and social interaction over conventional shopping. Rather than filling carts with bulk purchases, they seek curated products, authentic experiences, specialty food, meaningful encounters, and memorable destinations.
MIKA PINE responds to this shift by transforming a conventional commercial development into a food-centered urban destination where retail, hospitality, culture, and public life are seamlessly integrated into a single ecosystem capable of welcoming more than 3,500 visitors.
At the urban scale, the project's most significant design decision was also its most unconventional.
In a commercial development where the most valuable frontage would typically be dedicated to retail, we chose to eliminate conventional retail from the primary public level entirely and return this space to the city.
The ground floor became an 800-square-meter covered urban plaza animated by cafés and public gathering spaces. Large operable façades open completely to the surrounding streets every morning and remain active until late evening, allowing the building to function as a direct extension of the public realm. Rather than acting as an inward-looking shopping center, the project becomes part of the everyday life of the city.
This decision transforms the role of the development from a commercial container into civic infrastructure.
Unlike conventional shopping centers that separate retail, dining, and public space into independent zones, MIKA PINE integrates them into a continuous spatial experience where discovery, social interaction, and food culture become the primary drivers of movement throughout the building. The project is designed as a journey rather than a destination, encouraging visitors to explore, interact, and engage with food in multiple ways.
The visitor experience unfolds vertically through a carefully curated sequence of food-related environments.
The first lower level is dedicated to luxury bakery experiences, premium fresh-food retail, and specialty food offerings. The ground level hosts cafés and the covered urban plaza. A dedicated gallery level celebrates chocolate, tea, herbal infusions, and coffee culture, including coffee roasting as a visible and immersive experience. Upper levels combine 25 specialty food retail units with a diverse collection of restaurants and culinary experiences.
In total, the project accommodates 11 restaurants, 4 cafés, a family entertainment zone, and a signature fine-dining destination that crowns the upper levels. Eleven levels of parking support the development while allowing the public levels above to focus entirely on experience, interaction, and urban life.
Yet the project's most distinctive quality lies not in its program but in its cultural foundation.
Throughout Persian history, food has never been merely about consumption. It has been a medium of hospitality, celebration, storytelling, gathering, and human connection. Persian literature, poetry, and visual culture repeatedly depict food as a setting for social exchange and collective memory. In literary works such as Vis and Ramin and throughout centuries of Persian miniature painting, moments of gathering around food become moments of culture, emotion, and community.
This cultural legacy became a primary source of inspiration for the project.
Rather than using Persian culture as decoration, MIKA PINE transforms cultural narratives into spatial experience.
The design draws directly from the structure of Persian miniature paintings. Unlike Western perspective-based compositions, Persian miniatures reveal multiple scenes simultaneously, allowing narratives to unfold through movement, discovery, and layered visual relationships. This concept became a central architectural strategy.
Visitors move through a sequence of interconnected spaces linked by escalators, bridges, voids, transparent narrative elements, and shifting visual connections. Textured ceiling surfaces and layered glass fins surrounding the central atrium create the sensation of moving through a three-dimensional miniature painting. As visitors ascend through the building, new scenes continuously emerge, creating a dynamic architectural narrative where movement itself becomes part of the experience.
The architecture therefore functions not as a collection of floors, but as a spatial story centered on food, culture, and human interaction.
Environmental performance is equally integrated into the concept. The project's vertical circulation is enclosed within a transparent environmental buffer that minimizes thermal exchange between interior and exterior environments while maintaining visual openness and orientation. This strategy improves energy performance while preserving the building's connection to the city.
Ultimately, MIKA PINE addresses a challenge facing cities worldwide: how can physical destinations remain relevant in an era when shopping alone is no longer enough?
Our answer is to create a place people visit not simply to buy, but to experience.
Not simply to consume, but to connect.
Not simply to dine, but to participate in a culture.
By transforming a conventional retail brief into a new urban typology, MIKA PINE establishes a model where food becomes the catalyst for social life, cultural identity, and public engagement. It reimagines the relationship between commerce and community, translates Persian cultural heritage into a contemporary spatial experience, and proposes a new future for food-centered destinations in the Middle East.
Located in Kaj Square, one of Tehran’s most vibrant urban centers, the 23,000-square-meter project began as a conventional retail development. However, during the research and concept phase, our team challenged the original brief. Through analysis of changing consumer behavior, evolving urban lifestyles, and the economic realities of contemporary Iran, it became clear that traditional retail was no longer the most relevant response to the site or its users.
Instead of designing another shopping center, we fundamentally redefined the program and proposed an entirely new typology: EAT.MEET.SHOP.
The concept is based on a simple observation. Today's urban consumers increasingly seek experiences rather than transactions. They value quality over quantity, discovery over accumulation, and social interaction over conventional shopping. Rather than filling carts with bulk purchases, they seek curated products, authentic experiences, specialty food, meaningful encounters, and memorable destinations.
MIKA PINE responds to this shift by transforming a conventional commercial development into a food-centered urban destination where retail, hospitality, culture, and public life are seamlessly integrated into a single ecosystem capable of welcoming more than 3,500 visitors.
At the urban scale, the project's most significant design decision was also its most unconventional.
In a commercial development where the most valuable frontage would typically be dedicated to retail, we chose to eliminate conventional retail from the primary public level entirely and return this space to the city.
The ground floor became an 800-square-meter covered urban plaza animated by cafés and public gathering spaces. Large operable façades open completely to the surrounding streets every morning and remain active until late evening, allowing the building to function as a direct extension of the public realm. Rather than acting as an inward-looking shopping center, the project becomes part of the everyday life of the city.
This decision transforms the role of the development from a commercial container into civic infrastructure.
Unlike conventional shopping centers that separate retail, dining, and public space into independent zones, MIKA PINE integrates them into a continuous spatial experience where discovery, social interaction, and food culture become the primary drivers of movement throughout the building. The project is designed as a journey rather than a destination, encouraging visitors to explore, interact, and engage with food in multiple ways.
The visitor experience unfolds vertically through a carefully curated sequence of food-related environments.
The first lower level is dedicated to luxury bakery experiences, premium fresh-food retail, and specialty food offerings. The ground level hosts cafés and the covered urban plaza. A dedicated gallery level celebrates chocolate, tea, herbal infusions, and coffee culture, including coffee roasting as a visible and immersive experience. Upper levels combine 25 specialty food retail units with a diverse collection of restaurants and culinary experiences.
In total, the project accommodates 11 restaurants, 4 cafés, a family entertainment zone, and a signature fine-dining destination that crowns the upper levels. Eleven levels of parking support the development while allowing the public levels above to focus entirely on experience, interaction, and urban life.
Yet the project's most distinctive quality lies not in its program but in its cultural foundation.
Throughout Persian history, food has never been merely about consumption. It has been a medium of hospitality, celebration, storytelling, gathering, and human connection. Persian literature, poetry, and visual culture repeatedly depict food as a setting for social exchange and collective memory. In literary works such as Vis and Ramin and throughout centuries of Persian miniature painting, moments of gathering around food become moments of culture, emotion, and community.
This cultural legacy became a primary source of inspiration for the project.
Rather than using Persian culture as decoration, MIKA PINE transforms cultural narratives into spatial experience.
The design draws directly from the structure of Persian miniature paintings. Unlike Western perspective-based compositions, Persian miniatures reveal multiple scenes simultaneously, allowing narratives to unfold through movement, discovery, and layered visual relationships. This concept became a central architectural strategy.
Visitors move through a sequence of interconnected spaces linked by escalators, bridges, voids, transparent narrative elements, and shifting visual connections. Textured ceiling surfaces and layered glass fins surrounding the central atrium create the sensation of moving through a three-dimensional miniature painting. As visitors ascend through the building, new scenes continuously emerge, creating a dynamic architectural narrative where movement itself becomes part of the experience.
The architecture therefore functions not as a collection of floors, but as a spatial story centered on food, culture, and human interaction.
Environmental performance is equally integrated into the concept. The project's vertical circulation is enclosed within a transparent environmental buffer that minimizes thermal exchange between interior and exterior environments while maintaining visual openness and orientation. This strategy improves energy performance while preserving the building's connection to the city.
Ultimately, MIKA PINE addresses a challenge facing cities worldwide: how can physical destinations remain relevant in an era when shopping alone is no longer enough?
Our answer is to create a place people visit not simply to buy, but to experience.
Not simply to consume, but to connect.
Not simply to dine, but to participate in a culture.
By transforming a conventional retail brief into a new urban typology, MIKA PINE establishes a model where food becomes the catalyst for social life, cultural identity, and public engagement. It reimagines the relationship between commerce and community, translates Persian cultural heritage into a contemporary spatial experience, and proposes a new future for food-centered destinations in the Middle East.
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