Since 1978, with the change in the management model of municipalities, activists in the urban sphere were sidelined from the governance system. One of the significant damages of this was the absence of knowledge in metropolitan management, and one of its consequences was the domination of automobiles in cities and the serious diminishment of pedestrian life. Ultimately, this became one of the important afflictions in all Iranian cities, including Tehran, and led to inadequate livability for pedestrians.
From 1996, we witnessed the entry of a number of specialized urban managers into the body of governance. A comprehensive plan called "Tehran: A Pedestrian-Oriented City" was approved. Jahad Metro Station Plaza was one of the first projects of the "Tehran Pedestrian Pathway" plan, selected as a pilot project — one that, if successful and satisfying to the public, could be expanded across Tehran and other cities of the country. Of course, due to sanctions and severe economic difficulties, these projects had to be built at very low cost.
First, we prioritized the most critical urban deficiencies in the direction of a "pedestrian-oriented city," and on that basis, we selected metro station entrances as an urban blight for urban regeneration. After that, in numerous meetings with government officials, we were able to obtain approval for its execution from governing bodies, and as a pilot example, we conceived the project with a definition based on the users, the local appendages, and the context of the plan.
Our selection, from among the studied options, was a metro entrance on a triangular plot at the intersection of one of the important and busy streets in the old part of Tehran. This area was one of the early nuclei of the city of Tehran and carried within itself the history of different eras.
This plot had abandoned urban utilities. Unfortunately, this ugly practice has spread in an identity-less and inappropriate manner throughout the fabric of Iranian cities, causing numerous problems for users and local neighbors.
This project was an effort to redefine metro entrances in the city of Tehran and to define these entrances as a free and definable base for users — for urban events and the regeneration of unusable points for citizens in the direction of the comprehensive plan "Tehran: A Pedestrian-Oriented City."
Our strategy began with the definition of a free canopy without barriers to entry, to define the space beneath it at all hours of the day and night. This canopy generates the definition of the space below it, and due to the harsh climate of Tehran in both summer and winter, provides a place for centralizing the gathering of youth and wandering citizens around the city's inadequate sidewalks.
One of the forms we studied for this decision was the use of the arch form. This form, in addition to meeting the need for a tall and proportionate height at a cost consistent with the project budget and self-supporting, created a roof on structural walls that had a minimal footprint. Consequently, it bore a kind of reference to the architectural past of Iran, and because of the difference in function and the goal of creating a focal point, it had a distinctive, icon-like form compared to the surrounding fabric.
Beyond this reference to collective pre-understanding, the marking of this complex and its differentiation were also of great importance to us in the selection of this form. Our decision was a geometry based on the arch form that could, in a contemporary and creative manner, make alterations in the form and the type of use of its geometry. We conceived a labyrinth defined by these arches that, with the help of extrusion, would transform this base form into a new structure.
The metro is one of the high-traffic points that, due to the intellectual gap between the governing forces and the people, has witnessed extraordinary incidents in recent years. The recent protest movements in Iran began from a point in the Tehran metro, and these places are a site of contention in the metropolis of Tehran between the duality of governance and people. For this reason, we thought to transform the client's initial requirement from a "simple entrance" into "a covered urban event space and an entrance within democratic open spaces," and we considered this subject as a new arena for the confrontation of this duality in Tehran's metros.
