Persica Residential Building

Persica Residential Building is an apartment complex in Tehran that received a tied 3rd Place in the Apartment Buildings category at the 23rd Memar Award with 5 points. Designed by Bozhgan Architecture Studio under Hamed Badri Ahmadi, the building has 4,800 m² of built area on a 5,600 m² site.

Tehran is a city being swallowed by the reckless volume of its construction — an extremely dense city plagued by every manner of pollution, where gardens and open urban spaces are vanishing. The architects posed the question: can a building, through its design strategies, play an effective and redemptive role in this environment? Is it possible, in a meaningful and emphatic contrast with the polluted city, to make a living space green, vibrant, and full of energy?

Persica is an answer to this question. The project was originally intended to assume a classical appearance like many buildings in northern Tehran, but midway through, after the structural design and skeleton were already built, it changed course. On the new path, numerous challenges arose: adding green platforms to the facade with sufficient depth for planting and growth, when the building's skeleton was already under construction. Among the other important elements was the presence of a large drainage channel immediately beside the building, which through a strategic decision was incorporated into the design as a beautiful communal space — usable and simultaneously prepared for emergencies, rather than being sealed off and abandoned as is the norm.