Leo Steak House

Tomatoes Bakes and Grills, a café in Pattoor Trivandrum, Kerala is located in a 16 m x 13.5 m south-facing rectangular plot next to a two-way main road.

The design narrative was directed in asking the question, “How can the architect bring success for a business through design?” .As an answer to this, two factors determined the direction to take in the design of this café.  The first was to depend on people’s natural curiosity to persuade them check out the café for themselves. The second was to elicit interest in the quality of the space created thereby making it inviting and irresistible.

The current form was created through repeated deconstructive iterations on the conceptual sketches. The double height entry space was carved out and provided with natural from the glass façade. A circular overhang, along with a random arrangement of inclined circular posts ensured shading to the  glass wall, providing enough screening while preserving enough visibility to pique a passer-by’s interest. Spokes of the circular turbine were disassembled into radiating wooden planks at random in front of the glass walls of the upper floors.  Around 50% of the summer glare in the Southern façade was blocked by the circular façade and wooden spokes.

The parallel concept of a jet engine with its spokes served as the main inspiration for the form derivation in the design of the cafe. In a symbolic sense, the jet engine propels the aircraft. In retrospect, as Corbusier once noted in his book “Aircraft,” flight has always been a symbol of avant-garde concepts and innovations, creating an urban ideogram that denotes exploration, advancement, and limitless potential.