The ceremony for the 19th Memar Award was held in October 2019. The competition of this round, as in previous years, was conducted in two stages. In the first stage — held on a knock-out basis on 31 August and 1 September — 84 projects were carried through to the semifinal from among 243 entries that had submitted their documents in the four groups of Residential: Individual Dwellings, Residential: Apartment Buildings, Renovation and Public Buildings.
The second-stage jury was held on 28, 29 and 30 September. Thirty-three projects went through to the final, and of these, 17 were chosen as winners and honoured projects.
The jurors of this round of the Memar Award were Faramarz Sharifi, Alireza Sherafati, Kourosh Dabbagh, Mohammad Mohammadzadeh and Elham Geramizadeh.
Friends who attended past Memar Award ceremonies will recall that in some years short films about architects and urban spaces were screened on the occasion — for instance films on Abdolaziz Farmanfarmaian, Kamran Diba, "Suspension," "From Hosseiniyeh Ershad to the British Embassy Garden," and so on. On the occasion of Memar 117 — devoted to the local and vernacular architecture of Iran (Baluchistan) — a film about Baluchistan was prepared and screened at the start of this year's ceremony. The film is available on the Memar magazine channel (@memarnashr).
Judging criteria
- Creativity and innovation in design, and innovation in the use of materials and building technology;
- Creative engagement with the project's particular problems — economic limits, the site's particular conditions (dimensions and proportions), legal and urban regulations (especially in cities), technical difficulties, and so on;
- Precision and innovation in the design of details;
- Attention to the surrounding environment and climate, environmental values and social commitments.
It goes without saying that the final judgement on each project is not made by assigning a score to each of the above criteria and taking a numerical average; it is made through a judgement on the project's totality.
Programme and method of judging
Projects are divided into four groups — Residential: Apartment Buildings, Residential: Individual Dwellings, Public and Renovation — and the following stages are followed for each group:
- All projects of a group are placed before the jurors at once. After viewing them all, those projects on which all jurors agree as rejected are set aside; even a single juror's vote to retain a project keeps it in. The remaining projects pass to the semifinal stage.
- Among the semifinal projects, each juror tags their preferred works, without ranking and with their own label. Projects not chosen by any juror are eliminated; the selected projects are the finalists.
- From among the finalists, each juror separately ranks their first, second and third places. The first place earns 3 points, the second 2, and the third 1. The sum of all jurors' points determines the rankings.
- The jurors may consider some finalists worthy of special recognition; once the others agree, this becomes final.
Jurors
The five jurors of this round of the Memar Award were Faramarz Sharifi, Alireza Sherafati, Kourosh Dabbagh, Mohammad Mohammadzadeh and Elham Geramizadeh Naeini.
Results
Residential: Individual Dwellings
1st Place: Bahonar Street House, Malayer (11 points)
2nd Place: Beh Dad House, Kashan (7 points)
3rd Place: Ayenevarzan House, Damavand (6 points)
Honoured: Afra House
Residential: Apartment Buildings
1st Place: Kenarab Residential Building, Tehran (13 points)
2nd Place: Sarv Residential Building, Tehran (7 points)
3rd Place: 106 Residential Building, Karaj (Mehrshahr) (3 points)
Honoured: Bagh-e Zaman Residential Complex
Renovation
1st Place: Hanna Boutique Hotel, Tehran (15 points)
2nd Place: Architecture for Architect, Tehran (6 points)
3rd Place: Collage Apartment, Tehran (3 points)
Honoured: Damavand Villa · Arghavan
Public Buildings
1st Place: Kohan Ceram Central Office Building, Tehran (12 points)
2nd Place: S. & H. Khosravani Elementary School, Khomein (9 points)
3rd Place: Bakouyeh Tourism and Restaurant Complex, Shiraz (4 points)
Honoured: Jordan Office Building
For the jurors' detailed critique and dialogue on each of the winning and honoured projects, see the dedicated article for each project in this issue.
