Sayeh Residential Building

The Sayeh Residential Building is a luxury apartment complex in the Zafaraniyeh neighborhood of Tehran that received 2nd Place in the Apartment Buildings category at the 23rd Memar Award with 8 points. Designed by Ali Haghighi Architects, the building has a total built area of 3,500 m² on a 607 m² site.

The project was referred to the office at a stage when its structure had already been built based on an ostensibly classical design. The already-constructed structure imposed constraints including the existing column placement, relatively low floor heights, and a 45-degree chamfer on the facade. The central idea was to design a facade that, beyond conveying an overall sense of simplicity in a context where excess of color, material, and superfluous detail has disfigured the urban landscape, would return to the principles of aesthetics — proportion, scale, rhythm, and the balance of vertical and horizontal lines — to arrive at a perception of a static whole with dynamic details.

The residents feel the stone beyond the facade, within their living spaces. Carved and polished stone bars pass through the facade skin as vertical louvers with a trapezoidal cross-section, entering the principal interior spaces. These elements not only partially enclose the more private areas such as the guest room and terrace, but also bring reflected natural light into the interior at different hours of the day. The stone bars extend into the interior and combine with vertical mirrors, creating a harmonious interplay of light, shadow, and reflection that lends depth to the facade and fosters a dreamlike, poetic perception of the interior space.