Apartment No. 1 in Mahallat

Architecture by Collective Terrain (Ramin Mehdizadeh) Finalist of Iranian Architect Merit Award 2018 Location: Mahallat, Iran Date: 2010 Area: 1300 sqm Status: Completed Client: Mehdi Mehdizadeh, Hossein Sohrabpour, Ramin Mehdizadeh Design Associates: Omid Khodapanahi, Mohsen Abrishamkar Other Collaborators and Partners: Hyeoun Kim, Hanna Lee, Janghee Yoo, Namjoo Kim, Siyoung Kim Structure: Reza Mehdizadeh Mechanical Engineering: Ehsan Mehdizadeh Construction: Mehdi Mehdizadeh Graphic: Omid Khodapanahi, Ramin Mehdizadeh Photo: Omid Khodapanahi Awards: 1st Place of Memar Award 1389 This project is built in Mahallat, a small town in the center of Iran, where more than 50% of the economy is engaged in stone cutting business. Huge amount of energy (fossil fuel) is used to excavate and cut the stones. Yet, due to the inefficiency in the stone cutting technology, less than 50% of the stones are utilized and the rest of the unused stones are thrown away as trash, further polluting the natural environment. In this project, we recycle these left-over stones and use them for both exterior and interior walls. By recycling left-over stones from Mahallat’s main stream of business, we are able to connect ourselves and our project to the unique context of the town. In doing so, we demonstrate how an architectural solution can help us preserve precious natural resources in a creative way and significantly reduce the cost. The recycled stones used for the exterior create a subtle effect on geometry of the project, which consist of façade with emphatic angles. Slight roughness of mixed recycled stones creates somewhat warmer texture, effectively complementing sharply tailored façade. The coherent theme of locally-recycled stones of exterior walls is also reverberated in the interior of the project, where simple structure is accentuated by stone walls, creating a space that is expressed in a natural yet intimate manner.