Japanese Garden Restaurant explores how architecture, landscape, water and filtered daylight can form a single dining environment. Designed in 2026 by Ashkan Nikbakht and Babak Nikbakht, the proposal has a floor area of 350 square metres on a 700-square-metre site in Shiraz, Iran, and was developed for a private client.
The central intention is to create a calm, inward-looking atmosphere in which dining is closely connected to nature. Rather than treating planting and water as isolated decorative elements, the design brings them into the organisation of the interior. Curved seating islands, planted pockets and continuous water channels establish relationships between places to sit and the routes that connect them.
The seating arrangement is conceived as a series of islands within this garden-like setting. Its curved forms work with the planted pockets to shape the experience of moving through the restaurant. Dining, circulation and landscape are brought into close contact, with the garden acting as an organising idea throughout the space.
A double-skin patterned facade filters daylight and reinforces the introverted character of the scheme. The intended atmosphere depends on the interaction of light with surfaces, planting and water. Reflections and shadows are part of the spatial concept, giving the interior a changing visual character over the course of the day.
The proposed material palette combines natural timber, stone, dark metal, textured surfaces and woven pendant lights. These elements are brought together in a restrained composition, while sculptural trees and layered planting evoke a Japanese garden. The proposal seeks a quiet and sensory dining setting through the relationship between these materials and landscape elements.
The submitted material presents a design proposal, not a completed building. All images should be identified as architectural visualizations. The workflow uses 3ds Max, AI tools and Adobe Photoshop. The folder includes renderings, presentation images and plans illustrating the proposal.
