House of Navvab Safavi

The House of Navvab Safavi in Tehran, designed by Mohammadreza Ghanei and Ali Sheikholeslam, is a renovation and restoration project that again raises the theme of the corridor — a forgotten element valorized in the designers' earlier Sadri Residence. The project differs from the competition's other works in being a restoration rather than new construction.

Critic Kamran Afshar Naderi observed that the details of windows and railings are exaggeratedly decorative. The matting used in openings, the irregular and polygonal broken ceramics of the floor, the wavy surface of the glass wall of the main facade, the quasi-Art Nouveau design of the railings, and the slender tall columns of the main hall — though repeated in several instances like the floor pattern of the corridor — do not create good proportion and harmony with one another. Awarded 3rd Place at the 2nd Grand Memar Award (2002).