Nikbaspar Office Building

Nikbaspar Office Building in Tehran, won Second Place in the Urban Design category at the 15th Memar Award (2015). The project was referred to the architecture team at the completion-of-structure stage due to the client's reconsideration of the design. The first step was studying the context and the neighboring influences on and from the project, resulting in an urban perspective and pattern-based approach.

The architects view Tehran as a text entangled with its own linguistic components: a city that has experienced rapid changes in its urban development, with pre-revolution fabric frozen and modernism becoming nostalgic, while the city has continued to grow outside of plan. In this structure, the smallest meaningful unit — housing — shapes the environment, which the architects call a "pixel." The design philosophy holds that facades are not important; clarity is. The city's image is the product of a cluster system whose key concepts are summarized in "scale." Urban simplicity should not induce monotonous boredom, yet diversity must not overwhelm overall clarity. The main design challenge was determining appropriate resolution and scaling the building within its fabric.