Logical Process in Architectural Design Office — Elham Geramizadeh Naeini, Ehsan Hosseini

Saeed and his wife Anna wanted a villa on their 1,000-square-metre plot in which the extended family could gather at weekends. They were thinking of a large hall that could hold the whole family — and, like many of their neighbours, were not counting much on outdoor spaces because of the proximity of adjoining villas, the noise and the view from the street.

… But this summer the whole family comes here every weekend. Some are playing games, some are diving into the water, others retreat to a quiet corner — and… all of them, under the open sky, are gathered together in a larger group called "the family."

The starting move was to flip the convention: rather than building outward and giving the open spaces to the street side, the volume turns inward. A series of sunken courts, pools and terraces unfold around a central void so that the open space — not the closed one — becomes the gathering room.

The yard extends in different levels around the inner void: a sunken pool court at the lower level, a terrace at the middle level reached by red-painted stairs, and an upper roof terrace ringed by pomegranate planters. Every interior space — kitchen, dining, bedrooms — opens to one of these layers of yard, so the household lives between inside and outside rather than choosing between them.

Materials are deliberately limited: the introvert mass is built up in red exposed brick, the courts in red-pigmented concrete, and the interior in white plaster with timber floors. The single colour gives the project the quiet of a single object while letting the spatial complexity of the courts come forward.