Hanna House, Tehran

Today, urban life has drifted toward dwelling in apartments severed from nature — units that have sacrificed many of the qualities of a living space. Hanna House is an experiment in creating a home in dialogue with light and nature, one that, despite occupying a small plot, can offer its residents a pleasant living experience.

Initially, the client intended, with an economic motive, to build a two- or three-unit apartment on a one-hundred-square-meter lot measuring 5 by 20 meters, within the dense historic subdivisions of the Dolat Street neighborhood in Tehran. After surveying the site and the project's context, the idea of building an independent house — one that, through the vertical stacking of its sections, could generate a dynamic spatial and visual variety — was proposed to the client. Ultimately, with the client's agreement, the design of a house for his own residence was set in motion. In the end, the house even borrowed its name from one of its smallest inhabitants! A name that also bore an affinity with the color of the house.

The elongated shape and narrow width of the lot, enclosed on three sides, led the house to pull away from its northern neighbor, allowing light and fresh air to reach a greater number of spaces. By incorporating the vertical circulation at its center, the arrangement of spaces was strengthened to achieve the best possible access to light.

Upon encountering the house, the combination of brick's warm temperament with the building's simple volumes promises a warm and intimate environment. The windows appear on the exterior structure with simplicity alongside the brick, allowing the primary material to assert itself. The house also employs small, handmade colored ceramic tiles and wood to reinforce the sense of dwelling and its bond with memories.

A brick wall that extends from the lowest level of the house to the brick parapets of the roof — making the connection between the project's exterior and interior more pronounced — has become the backdrop for the staircase. The light that falls through the glass ceiling of the stairwell onto this wall adds the play of light and time to the space.

The lightwell of the house, also clad in brick, accommodates two terraces and a suspended metal planter box, which, while permitting light to pass through, provide an opportunity for dialogue between the interior and exterior spaces of the home. The terraces take other forms in the facade as well. Two metal frames offer small spaces for the residents to connect with the outside environment, while a more expansive terrace links the living room with the large plane tree adjacent to the house.

The kitchen, to accommodate the dining space within itself, conceals its cabinetry behind seamless doors whose green color keeps company with the plants of the courtyard.

On its roof and in its yard, the house forms a composition of open, closed, and semi-open intermediary spaces so that — particularly on the roof — moving between these sections enables the residents to experience a variety of sensations. The brick cladding of surfaces preserves the house's coherence throughout this movement, and the transparent ceiling and walls of the stairwell connect the interior space to the outside.

In the northern part of the roof, a small pool and jacuzzi are situated, which, with plant cover and a wooden screen wall, secure their own privacy. In its openness toward light, the house extends its arms generously, and the proportions of the windows are shaped so that the building's limited spaces, in conjunction with expansive single-pane glass, extend into the outdoor spaces, while simultaneously creating a substrate for the exchange of greenery between inside and out. These large windows make use of small terraces beside them for cleaning access, and furthermore, with parapets of appropriate height, they enable the formation of seating ledges alongside.