Located on historic Charles Street in Boston, Upper Crust Pizza is designed both as a neighborhood pizza joint as well as a “culinary boutique,” given its sensitive location amongst a range of other high-end businesses. A large storefront “vitrine” connects the dining area to the street in a direct and frontal manner. The dining area revolves around two major features that organized the scheme: a floor and a ceiling that wrap the space in extra-ordinary ways providing for program and technical apparatuses. Both features monumental and highly theatrical address the potential relationship of the project to the street. The floor, a rich cherry wood, peels from the ground to create a single communal table housing twelve people; the table also extends further unfolding to become the pounding table of the head chef, on display to customers and the passersby on the street. The new ceiling encases all of the existing HVAC, sprinkler, and mechanical equipment of the space while wrapping down the back wall as a backdrop for the scene. Fabricated from laser-cut aluminum panels, the folded and bent surface produces and a single and continuous geometry appearing as a single figure

Principal in charge: Nader Tehrani

Project Design: Monica Ponce de Leon + Nader Tehrani

Project Coordinator: Hamad Al- Sultan

Project Team: Albert Garcia, Kristen Giannattasio, Achille Rossini

Architect of Record: Alexander Coogan Architect Inc.

Client : Jordan Tobins