Sang-E-Siah Boutique Hotel

Sang-e-Siah Boutique Hotel is situated in the historic fabric of Shiraz's Sang-e-Siah neighborhood, between and alongside five nationally registered buildings from the Ilkhanid, Zand, Qajar, and Pahlavi periods. The project is an effort to experience urban renewal within a fabric where recent revitalization strategies based on demolition-and-consolidation have gradually destroyed the proportions of solids and voids, the geometric system of passages, and the structure of a significant portion of the historic neighborhood. Rather than consolidating plots and defining a large-scale complex, the architects envisioned annexation of buildings. Despite limited financial resources, they began with an initial core and planned for expansion to adjacent plots and ultimately through the fabric. During construction of the initial core, two adjacent plots were acquired and are now under construction, with several more in acquisition. The decision to annex rather than consolidate allows the project to remain alive forever — fine-grained elements connecting to larger assemblies for different functions, with passages at different levels reproducing the external network within. This propagation of life plot by plot is a proposal for revitalizing historic fabric that will always remain unfinished — with a hidden desire for expansion. Along its rhizomatic path, wherever it finds a valuable building, it restores and revives it; wherever it finds a building lacking conservation value, it designs in dialogue with the fabric, striving to represent its own age in connection with context. Sang-e-Siah won Third Place in the Public Buildings category at the 20th Memar Award (2020).