Bagh Mashhad

Bagh Mashhad is a five-storey residential apartment building on Bagh Mashhad Street in Isfahan, designed by HAMAAN Studio (Behrouz Shahbazi). The project's five related clients required five identical units across five floors, which meant spatial variety through changing typologies was not possible. Instead, the design intervention focused on a concentrated change: rearranging the connection of open and semi-open spaces and the hierarchy of access within the conventional apartment typology, drawing on the historical traditions of the house in Isfahan.

The design question was: how can these limbs be joined so that the forgotten possibilities of the home are revived? Can a role resembling the inner and outer courtyards of the past be bestowed upon today's balcony? Rethinking the connection between vertical access and the balcony created the possibility of a fresh spatial order — one that re-establishes a spectrum from private to public within the apartment. The two inner/outer courtyards serve both as added intermediate spaces and as the backbone for shaping all other spaces of the house and redefining their boundaries.

Among the architectural possibilities of this diagram is a different use of light and the sunset vista. The western frontage is the longest, and the placement of the courtyards on the western face means that one need not follow the perennial rule that western light is undesirable. The courtyards are hinges that filter the western light, and the space adjacent to them becomes a cozy nook facing the framed sunset — a space they have named the "sunset nook."

At the 25th Memar Award, Bagh Mashhad received 10 points with strong voting consensus, earning 1st Place in the Apartment Buildings category. Two jurors gave it first place and two gave it second, reflecting broad appreciation for its reinterpretation of the traditional Isfahan courtyard typology within a modern apartment building.