Dar Divar

Dar Divar ("In The Wall") is a showroom and administrative facility within a stone-cutting factory in the Mahmoudabad Industrial Zone of Isfahan, designed by Javad July and Hootan Shaterpoor. The design brief had two parts: to create a dividing wall converting a section of the shed into an independent showroom, and to design an administrative building on land opposite the shed.

The central question was: could a wall be imagined as something more than a mere boundary? The answer lay hidden within the factory itself — in a silent, unseen space among columns and beams, especially in the three-metre strip where the cranes of the two sheds could not reach. From this observation, the concept of a "habitable wall" was born: a wall that is simultaneously the boundary between showroom and factory and a platform for inhabitation, display, and spatial experience.

In redefining the wall, waste stone from the factory itself was used: stones dry-stacked within gabion meshes with insulation between them. The gabion shell was then sliced open, and metal modules embedded within it — volumes like cuts from the heart of stone. These protruding volumes are a metaphor for the process of stone: cutting, finishing, and creating anew. The wall was transformed from a rigid line into a dynamic surface — one that is split open, gives birth to space, and where plan and elevation are interwoven.

During the 25th Memar Award jury deliberations, juror Han Tumertekin praised Dar Divar for its "delicacy and sculptural precision" in a large volume. Juror Nasrin Seraji described it as exploring "the wall as vitrine — spatializing the dividing element... the idea of thickening the wall as space, which we see less often in today's architecture, felt fresh to me." The project received a unanimous 5 points, placing 3rd in Public Buildings.