Finalists: Apartment Buildings

Finalists: Apartment Buildings — 17th Memar Award

Six projects reached the finalist stage in the Apartment Buildings category of the 17th Memar Award (1396 / 2017) — works that did not place in the medal tier but were judged by the jury as the most coherent answers Iranian architects gave that year to the multi-unit residential question. The six range from a 220-square-metre walk-up alongside two old plane trees in Isfahan to a nineteen-unit tower-garden complex in mid-rise Tehran. Three of the six are located in Pasdaran and Farmanieh — the higher-density edges of Tehran's northern districts where the apartment block has become the dominant typology — and three lie further out: a hillside house in Darband, a vertical light-slit project in Damavand, and the plane-tree apartment in Isfahan's Najavan neighbourhood. The texts and facts below are transcribed from the original 17th Memar Award supplement (Memar 106, Mehr–Aban 1396).

Sooye Chenar Apartment, Isfahan

Tahsin Baladi

Location: Najavan neighbourhood, Amir Forouhani Alley, Isfahan
Client: Pourghadiri
Design associate: Elham Khalili
Mechanical & electrical design: Javad Giahchin
Supervision & photo: Tahsin Baladi
Director of construction: Hamid Davoudi
Site area: 220 m²
Total built area: 921 m²

The Najavan neighbourhood was once garden and farmland, which drew population and growth into this fresh-air corner of Isfahan and turned the orchards into a dense residential fabric. Two plane trees still stand on the northern edge of the plot, and we built the design's structural idea on their presence.

The first move was to set up a dialogue between the building and the trees — a coded, poetic dialogue. Openings and windows were placed by the best and closest view in each storey to the mass of branches and leaves opposite each room, so that on every floor the best link between inside and outside is established. Consequently the windows on different floors do not stack as a single type; the variation produces a free composition on the facade.

To meet the strict overlook regulation of Isfahan's detailed plan, vertical louvres were placed in front of the north-facing windows so that the view of the trees is preserved while the view into neighbouring houses to the north-west and north-east is screened. The material idea also came from the trees: the tangible parts close to the openings are wood, evoking the bark and leaves of the plane tree, drawing the building closer to its tree-neighbours.

Tower seen from the side — stone and wood-louver bands stacked across four storeys — The tower seen from the side — bands of stone and wood-louvered openings stacked across four storeys, with the louvre cage above the entry gate.

Two detail views — exterior planter with a young palm and an interior corner with stone-filled trough — Details: an exterior planter with a young palm at the foot of vertical stone fins; an interior corner where stones repeat the gesture against a polished marble floor.

Two interior views — entry hallway with traditional rug and inner foyer with floating bench — Two interior views — the entry hallway opens through a glass wall onto the courtyard, with a traditional rug on the polished floor; the inner foyer wraps wood panelling against the white concrete soffit.

"Us A Look" Residential Building, Damavand

Reza Habibzadeh

Location: Bahonar Boulevard, Niloofar Alley 5, No. 14, Damavand
Client: Mehdi Raoofi
Design associate: Sheyda Etemad
Construction: Mehdi Raoofi
Structure: Keyvan Mohammadi
Photo: Mohammadhassan Ettefagh
Site area: 1,000 m²
Total built area: 3,000 m²

Instead of a conventional light well, the project uses a narrow continuous fissure running the full depth of the building, which also reduces the permissible footprint. The site sits above the beautiful Damavand landscape, so this fissure was cut to draw view, light and perspective into the project and into every single room. In this way, every room of the house, on every floor, has natural light and a real view of the mountains.

The windows are designed with soft rotations so that they catch light without exposing the interior to neighbouring houses, and they protect the inhabitants' privacy. The small green spaces between floors, created by the rotation of plans stacked above one another, bring a small piece of nature into the building itself.

Entry to the building also happens through this fissure: on the southern side it reads as a private alley. The windows are eyes that look out from the middle of the building toward the surroundings — in this house the lost looks, those that have for years been pressed against cement walls, finally find their way to the mountain and the plain.

Vertical light-slit between two white volumes with sculptural projecting windows — The vertical light-slit between the two white volumes. The projecting cubes are the rotated windows that catch the mountain view without exposing the interior to neighbours.

Interior corridor and 1st and 3rd floor plan diagram showing rotated layout — Interior corridor along the fissure (left) and 1st & 3rd floor plan (right) showing how each unit is rotated to capture light from the central slit.

Wide view of the white residential building in its Damavand landscape setting — The building seen from the street, the vertical slit dividing the two white volumes, balconies stepped to follow the mountain horizon.

Sarva Residential Complex, Tehran

Padiavparth Architectural Group, Bahram Shokouhian

Location: Heravi, Saghdoosh Street, South Mokran Street, Jafari Alley, No. 14, Tehran
Clients: Afshin Eftekhari, Pedram Vaziri Nasab, Mohammadmehdi Jahangirian
First-phase design team: Armida Razavi, Hamed Sheibani, Ali Novinpoor, Amir Fazeli, Bahar Saadat
Second-phase design team: Armida Razavi, Ramin Rahrovani, Mahdieh Soleymani, Shahin Makouei, Mohammadreza Majidifar, Maryam Khalili
Construction: Mohammadmehdi Jahangirian
Architectural supervision: Ramin Rahrovani, Armida Razavi
Structural supervision: Mohammad Masoumi
Mechanical supervision: Bahram Eksiri, Iman Lotfollahi
Electrical supervision: Babak Nazarparvar, Mohammad Shojae
Structure: Jalaledin Sajadian
Electrical: Azmayesh Partners Consulting Engineers
Mechanical: Bahram Eksiri
Graphic: Armida Razavi
Photo: Ali Daghigh
Site area: 816.25 m²
Total built area: 6,353 m²

This nineteen-unit residential complex sits in a mid-rise Tehran district and is designed as a tower-garden. Working within the thirty-percent footprint rule for the tower-garden category, the first ideas were generated by trying to position the solid and void spaces. After studying the options, two volumes — north and south — emerged, joined by a connecting bridge.

The result of that placement is two voids between the north and south volumes plus the bridge that links them. Together they do more than satisfy urban and architectural regulations: they deliver the maximum daylight and the minimum cross-unit overlook. They also let the southern units enjoy the northern view.

In the lobby, after the main hall, the solid stair core divides the space into two separate halves, each pointing toward its own lift. To keep the lobby reading as a single space, walls and floor are clad in travertine, banded with strips of white stone. Several facade options were considered; the one chosen carries modernist simplicity, visual appeal, the economy demanded by the client, durability over time, and resistance to Tehran's air pollution over the 43-metre height of the building.

Sarva Residential Complex — banded facade of the tower-garden seen from the southern approach — The Sarva tower seen from the southern approach — banded travertine and brick facade rising 43 metres above its mid-rise neighbours.

Wood-clad lobby interior with travertine floor banded in white stone — The lobby — wood-clad walls and travertine floor banded with white stone, kept as a single uninterrupted space.

1st, 2nd, 5th and 9th floor plan showing two volumes joined by a connecting bridge — 1st, 2nd, 5th and 9th floor plan — two volumes (north and south) separated by two voids and joined by a connecting bridge.

Darband House, Tehran

Experimental Branch of Architecture, Arash Mozafari

Location: Darband Street, Asadollahi Street, Hosseini Street, corner of Samari Street, No. 14, Tehran
Clients: Alireza Hosseini Reivandi, Mohammad Mehdi Hosseini Reivandi
Design team: Milad Salehi Vasegh, Aghil Bahra, Babak Rashedi, Zahra Sadat Rahmati, Ali Haj Gholamian, Maryam Sharifi, Iman Daneshvarnejad, Atiyeh Aghaee, Farhad Minaee, Siavash Habibi, Shirin Haddadian, Mehrad Alimohammadi, Negin Yazdani, Nina Mirmohammadi, Behnaz Khani, Nastaran Kia
Construction: Mohammad Mehdi Hosseini Reivandi
Structural design: Dariush Zareie, Mohammadjavad Hamidia, Kiarash Mohtasham Dolatshahi
Mechanical design: Abshar Group, Iman Ilbeigi
Photo: Farshid Nasrabadi
Site area: 305 m²
Total built area: 1,650 m²

The building sits on a hill where the difference in level between the north and south sides of the site is twenty-one metres. To insist on both access and a real urban view, the lobby level is left empty and the visual axis of the northern path is allowed to pass through the building, so that the northern view to the city and the southern view to the mountain are both preserved.

One of the site's other characteristics is the steep slope of the road that runs past it; resolving that slope became one of the project's formation diagrams. The road's slope opens beneath the house, where the lobby and the main access are located. By making this space transparent, the house is detached from the ground and the project's transparent lobby sits raised above the city.

Another foundation of the design was working with — and against — municipal regulations: the impact of parking-space count on the structure, the dimensions of bays and the number of units; the rules on projections; the two-metre cantilever after sixty per cent of the plot; the fixing of the ground-floor level relative to grade — all of these together challenged the final shape of the house and produced the volume that was built.

Darband House at dusk — stacked brick volume on the hill with car light trails — Darband House at dusk — stacked brick volumes above a transparent ground-floor lobby. The horizontal red streak below is the light trail of the steep road passing beneath the house.

Bright interior with full-height glazing onto a balcony — A unit interior — full-height glazing opens onto the city view to the north, the polished floor extending out to the balcony's edge.

Empty unit interior — light-toned corridor before fit-out — An empty unit before fit-out — the staggered volumes outside become the wall-relief inside, with the same alignment of openings.

Golestan Residential Building, Pasdaran, Tehran

Razan Architecture Office, Navid Emami

Location: Pasdaran, end of Golestan Sixth, Tehran
Client: Ali Asghar Haji Baba
Design team: Saeed Souri, Nasim Nouri, Behrouz Samadi, Golafrouz Alanour, Hamed Ahmadi, Minoo Pour Rahmat, Arash Rezayizadegan, Shaghayegh Daneshmand, Yazdan Ebrahimi
Construction: Hamrah Sanat Co., Alireza Nayyeri
Supervision: Razan Architects
Structure: Karab Isatis Co.
Electrical: Mr. Kalhor
Mechanical: Mr. Boostan
Photo: Parham Taghioff, Afrooz Khazaei
Site area: 1,200 m²
Total built area: 8,000 m²

The project sits on a wide, dead-end alley near a military zone, which imposes a twenty-metre height limit. The building has five floors above grade and four below.

On northern plots, where the building is closed on three sides, the conventional four-unit floor plate gives two units direct light from the courtyard and two units indirect light from eastern and western light wells. Carving terraces two storeys tall, without mutual overlook, became a challenge that turned the outer envelope into a stepped, layered facade and answered the building's proportions.

The depressed terraces created light-and-shadow play and full-and-empty spaces; carrying those into the interior was the next move in raising the quality of the living space. Material selection responded to the adjacent street walls.

In northern plots the courtyard usually doubles as the access route to the building and is often decorated with planting and water features. Here, by lowering one part of the courtyard by one storey while keeping the access path as a bridge, a semi-enclosed, safe, distance-from-the-outside space is created that will be given over to the children's play and the residents' rest.

Golestan Residential Building — five-storey faceted facade with white stone bands and timber panels — The five-storey faceted facade — white stone bands wrap around timber panels and inset balconies, the entrance ramp curving down into the depressed courtyard.

Top-lit stair core looking up through stacked landings — The stair core — top-lit through a vertical slit running the height of the building.

Bathroom interior — orange-toned stone wall against polished floor — A bathroom interior — orange-toned stone wall set against the polished marble floor, an interior echo of the facade's warm timber bands.

Ground floor plan showing depressed courtyard and bridge access — The ground-floor plan — the depressed courtyard sits one storey below grade with a bridge holding the original access path above it.

|I!| Residential Building, Farmanieh, Tehran

Arad Architecture Office, Bahram Kalantari & Kourosh Dabbagh

Location: Farmanieh, Mehmandoust Street, Darougar dead-end, No. 7, Tehran
Client: Mohsen Asgari
Design team: Padideh Teymourian, Mahdi Holakouii, Fereshteh Assadzadeh, Saba Soltani, Maryam Zoghi
Construction: Shahram Khoshkhouii, Omid Mahdavian
Supervision: Padideh Teymourian
Structure: Arta Co.
Electrical: Vahid Morteza Ghasemi
Mechanical: Melkon Sarkezians
Graphic: Fereshteh Assadzadeh, Maryam Zoghi
Photo: Ali Daghigh
Site area: 520 m²
Total built area: 2,600 m²

In the design of this five-unit residential building, the general user and everyday life were placed at the centre of attention. The goal was to raise the level of taste, aesthetic and residential function in equal measure. Usability, smooth and easy spatial relations, and quality architectural space in living were pursued at every level of the project — from the outside of the units to their interiors, in the shared spaces, and in the mechanical systems supporting the architecture.

A layer of carved-stone fins rides over the facade, casting shadow on it. Dark metal sheets frame the windows and balconies, emphasising the windows and their variable proportions. The two materials — white carved stone and dark metal — sit in contrasting colour and light reflection, creating a double-skin facade that changes its face at different sun angles.

The same play of light, shadow and colour repeats inside. In the pool, for example, warm-toned wood fins form a unified surround that wraps the cool blue rectangle and circle of the pool and jacuzzi.