Finalists: Renovation

Finalists: Renovation — 17th Memar Award

Nine projects reached the finalist stage in the Renovation 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 strongest examples of renovation work in Iran that year. The nine span scales and programs as different as a 45-square-metre walk-up in Shiraz, a 1,700-square-metre hospital façade in Tehran, and a small mud-brick village house turned into a homestay in eastern South Khorasan. Six of the nine are interiors and shop renovations in Tehran; one is a vernacular village restoration in Furg, near Birjand. The texts and facts below are transcribed from the original 17th Memar Award supplement (Memar 106, Mehr–Aban 1396).

45 M² House, Shiraz

Ashari Architects — AmirHossein Ashari

Location: Felestin Street, Alley 2, Shiraz
Design associate: Zahra Jafari
Construction: Sahar Gharaee, Mohammad Moazeni, Mohammad Darabi, Saeed Jamali, Ehsan Shabani
Wood: Moin Nekouee, Adib Eshragh
Structure & metal: Asghar Gerami, Ayyoub Hashemi
Lighting: Navid Farahbakhshfar
Studios: Elnaz Amini Khanimani
Graphic: Sara Zahmatkeshfard Shirazi
Photo: Parham Taghioff, Amirali Ghafari
Total built area: 45 m²

A small rooftop apartment in central Shiraz, 45 square metres of plan, asked for a renovation that would not feel small. The owner wanted a single space that could move between living, work, sleep and rest without dividing walls — a contemporary echo of a one-room Iranian house.

The answer is a continuous timber surface that runs across walls, ceiling, floors and joinery. Modular furniture slides and folds inside the timber envelope so that the same volume becomes a bedroom at night, a study during the day, and a small living-and-dining room when guests arrive.

The renovation also restores a roof terrace at the front; the timber envelope opens to it through a tall glazed wall framed in slender black mullions, drawing daylight deep into the plan.

Wood-clad living space with a single red chair — The living corner — a single red chair animates the otherwise continuous timber envelope.

Warm-toned bedroom with timber-clad walls — The bedroom mode — modular timber joinery folds out around the sleeping volume.

Compact wood-lined interior with glazing detail — Detail of the timber surface — the same material wraps walls, ceiling and joinery to read as a single warm volume.

Last Floor, Fantoni Headquarter, Tehran

Third Skin Architects — Samaneh Ghasempour & Amir Ghasempour

Location: Sader Nama Co., Tehran
Client: Amir Hossein Keshavarz (Sader Nama Co.)
Construction: Farzin Khosrotabi
Supervision: Amir Ghasempour
Structure: Hamid reza Rajabi
Electrical and BMS: Hamid Ahmad Beigi
Mechanical: Deed Studios, Masih Mostajeran, Hakim Hemadi
Total built area: 180 m² office space + 1,170 m² open space

The top floor of the Fantoni Headquarters in Tehran was reorganised around a careful redefinition of the building's interior facade. The new internal facade is a mediating layer between the office floor and the open-space landscape on the roof, controlling daylight, sound, and the threshold between work and rest.

The interior spaces are pulled toward the building's perimeter; the centre is left as an open meeting and circulation hall. The light-grey ceiling and pale floor extend the impression that every room is part of a single open-plan loft.

The roof landscape is held in dialogue with the office: planted boxes step toward the parapet, and the same metal frames that carry the interior facade pick up the planters outside.

Top-floor office interior with grey floor and timber wall — The top-floor office interior — pale floor and a timber wall organise the open work hall.

Roof landscape with planted boxes at dusk — The roof landscape at dusk — planted boxes step toward the parapet, framed by the same metal lines as the interior.

Open meeting area with banquette seating — An open meeting area — banquette seating wraps a small lounge inside the central hall.

Long interior corridor along the perimeter — The perimeter corridor — workstations sit along the windows and the corridor leads to shared spaces.

A House in Furg, Birjand

Behzad Riazi

Location: Furg village, east of Birjand, South Khorasan
Client: Behzad Riazi
Supervision: Sadegh Tavan
Construction: Mojtaba Salehi
Electrical: Tabesh
Graphic: Avid Sagheb Taleti
Photo: Farshid Nasrabadi
Total built area: 82 m²

Furg is a small adobe village east of Birjand in South Khorasan. The renovation took a single domestic compound on the village edge and reshaped it into a small homestay that the village can offer to architecture-curious visitors making their way through the south-eastern desert.

The bones of the renovation are local: rammed-earth walls were patched with the same earth, the room sequence around the courtyard was kept intact, and a vaulted timber ceiling was repaired with new poles cut from the same village. Doors and windows were rebuilt in the older proportions; new glazing is set behind the older frames.

What is added is the colour. Each room takes a single saturated wall — pink, terracotta, lapis blue — that lifts the unevenly plastered surface and catches the desert light through small windows. A pellet stove, simple modular sofa-beds and short modern stools sit lightly on the brick floors.

Adobe wall of the Furg house exterior — The adobe wall of the Furg house — patched in the same earth, with a low new brick plinth at the base.

Pale-pink room with vaulted timber ceiling and modular sofa — A pale-pink room — vaulted timber ceiling, blue-painted window, and a modular sofa-bed for short stays.

Bedroom with a single saturated wall colour — One of the bedrooms — the saturated wall takes the bare adobe to a contemporary register.

Living room with red wall and seating around a small stove — A living room — a red wall, two simple chairs, and the village's pellet stove at the centre.

R8 Fitness Club, Roosha, Tehran

Sohrab Rafat Studio — Sohrab Rafat

Location: Pasdaran Avenue, Roosha Commercial Complex, Tehran
Client: Maziar Minachi
Design associates: Salomeh Golbabaei, Negin Asgari, Mohammad Hossein Shoghi, Vahid Joudi
Phase 2: Narges Jazayeri
High supervision: Sohrab Rafat Architecture
Construction: Arko Co.
Supervision and superintendent: Shahin Kazemi
Graphic: Vahid Joudi
Photo: Ali Daghigh, Parham Taghioff
Total built area: 1,400 m²

The R8 Fitness Club occupies the eighth floor of the Roosha Commercial Complex in Pasdaran. Once a generic shell, the interior was reorganised around the geometry of a single triangulated form that ripples through the entry corridor, the public-VIP threshold, and the equipment halls.

The triangulated lines become wayfinding: at the entrance they pull the visitor toward the reception; at the threshold to the VIP fitness floor they fold around the R8 logo wall; and inside the equipment halls they become the ceiling pattern that breaks the long shed-like volume into smaller, gym-scaled rooms.

Lighting holds the whole composition together. Strips of cool blue mark the entrance, warm gold marks the VIP corridor, and white LEDs throw the triangulated ceiling into relief inside the workout halls.

Dark blue entrance corridor with triangulated form — The entrance corridor — strips of cool blue light pull the visitor toward reception.

The warm gold corridor — the same triangulated geometry tracks toward the VIP fitness floor.

The R8 logo wall — folded around the threshold between corridor and equipment halls.

Lobby with triangulated reception desk — The reception lobby — triangulated reception desk and ceiling break the long shed-like volume.

Rooberoo Mansion, Tehran

Sanaz Khodadad, Mehran Arefian & Vahid Gheidi

Location: Enghelab Square (Sherafat Junction), Tehran
Client: Hooman Memarpanahi
Design associate: Bahareh Hanafi
Project manager & construction: Vahid Gheidi
Graphic: Meisam Khavari
Photo: Sanaz Khodadad, Goli Nazari, Ali Zamani
Site area: 700 m²
Total built area: 382 m²

Rooberoo Mansion sits on the edge of Enghelab Square, where the dense pedestrian crowd of central Tehran meets the closed gardens of older mansions. The renovation kept the original two-storey building intact and added a second life around its courtyard: a bookstore on the ground floor with deep timber stacks, and a café and event hall behind it that open onto the courtyard's quiet edge.

The intervention treats the old garden wall as the project's spine. Stepping pavers replace the older flagstones; bookshelves rise to the original cornice line; and a slim metal canopy carries the new circulation between the bookstore and the rear café.

At night, the courtyard lights up under a soft amber glow that bounces off the brick walls — the mansion-turned-bookstore as a small lantern in the middle of a busy square.

Bookshelf-lined corridor of Rooberoo Mansion — The bookshelf-lined corridor — deep timber stacks rise to the original cornice line of the old mansion.

Night view of the courtyard with planted trees — The courtyard at night — planted trees and the warm-lit interior catch the soft amber light.

Plan diagram of the building and courtyard — Plan diagram — the bookstore wraps the courtyard; the café and event hall sit on the rear edge.

Entrance to the mansion at night, lit from within — The entrance at night — the old mansion's facade glows from within against the Enghelab Square crowd.

Unit 52, Tehran

Iman Shafiee & Behzad Maneshgar

Location: Farmanieh, Narenjestan 7, No. 28, Unit 52, Tehran
Client: Daarvag International
Design team: Neda Ahmadinezhad, Mehran Alinezhad, Parinaz Kabiri
Construction: Ehsan Ghorab, Shahin Shabestari, Hamed Namazi, Sari Ahmadkhani, Ebrahim Mohammadi, Abbas Taherian, Jafar Taherian
Electrical: Hojat Taheri, Arash Taheri
Photo: Studio Deed
Area: 430 m²

The 430-square-metre interior of Daarvag International, the project's client, was renovated to give an arts-and-advertising company a space that supports both formal client communication and the informal culture of a creative office.

The design strategy folds a single connecting loop through the plan: the loop runs as a dark concrete-clad ring through the offices, serving them as a non-formal in-between space — a kind of internal gallery — that wraps every formal office room. The loop holds the project's strongest material gesture; the office rooms themselves stay neutral and bright.

Movement and connection between all rooms of the studio are organised on this ring, which works as a structured, articulated ring of activity. The ring can also host short rest spaces, internal debates, and small individual or group exhibitions.

Dark concrete-clad internal corridor — The dark concrete ring — the internal gallery that wraps every formal office room.

Floor plan showing the dark concrete ring at the centre — The floor plan — the dark concrete ring (shown in yellow) loops through the centre of the office plate.

Bright white corridor with people seated — A bright work corridor — staff sit on a banquette in front of full-height glazing.

Office bench against full-height glazing — An office bench against the perimeter glazing — daylight is kept at the edge of the plan.

Address Food Hall, Tehran

Zomorrodi & Associates — Shahrooz Zomorrodi

Location: Tehran
Clients: Hosseini, Moradi & Partners
Design team: Payam Alrahman, Shirin Bagheri, Ali Moravvej
Construction: Zomorrodi & Associates
Supervision: Shahram Kamali
Structure: M. Sarrafzadeh
Mechanical & electrical: Zomorrodi & Associates
Graphic: Anna Akhlaghi, Gelareh Aghaee, Payam Alrahman, Shirin bagheri, Hosseini Karimi, Zahra Zolekhwane
Photo: Parham Taghioff
Site area: 1,500 m²
Total built area: 1,200 m²

Address Food Hall renovates a 1,500-square-metre commercial floor in Tehran into a five-restaurant food hall: Mexico City (Mexican), Pasta Company (Italian), Sandwich Station, Address Café, and Burger Works. The brief asked the architects to give each restaurant a strong identity while keeping the food hall as a single, easy-to-read room.

The approach was to treat each restaurant as a stage, each with its own scenography (signage, lighting, finishes) within a continuous floor of timber, brick and steel. The overlap of textures and lighting between stages becomes the food hall's shared character.

The renovation also rebuilt the connection between the food hall and the surrounding mall: a new triangular metal staircase becomes the visible spine, and the food hall reads from the upper levels of the mall as a richly textured ground.

Plant-fronted counter in the food hall — A plant-fronted counter — one of the five restaurant stages inside the food hall.

Wood-clad interior with Mexico City sign — The Mexico City stage — timber walls and a sign-painted Mexico City sign give the corner its identity.

Wide interior view with multiple stages — A wider interior — the overlap of textures between stages becomes the food hall's shared character.

Triangular metal staircase as spine — The new triangular metal staircase — the visible spine that connects the food hall to the surrounding mall.

Kalu Bag & Shoes Store, Tehran

Hasht Consulting Engineers (Hamgoon Shahr Tinab)

Location: Jomhouri Street, near Sepahsalar, Tehran
Client: Yousef Norouzi
Design team: Shahab Ahmadi, Iman Hedayati, Mahdieh Massah, Naghmeh Olfat, Niloufar Mohammadzadeh, Mostafa Delavari
Construction & electrical & mechanical: Hasht Consulting Engineers
Graphic: Niloufar Mohammadzadeh, Mohammad Ali Ahmadi
Photo: Hossein Farahani
Total built area: 182 m²

The Kalu shop is a small bag-and-shoes store on Jomhouri Street, where the renovation reads the merchandise as the design's primary form. Cream-coloured plaster walls bend and fold around the shelves and the central display, creating cave-like niches that hold the goods.

The folded plaster surfaces continue from the walls onto the ceiling and the display platforms, so the entire shop reads as a single carved surface. Display lighting is buried in the folds, throwing the bags and shoes into relief against the soft cream surround.

The shopfront is a slim black frame on the busy Jomhouri Street, with a single white-on-black Kalu logo — a quiet contrast to the bright cave inside.

The entrance — a slim black frame on a busy street, with the white-on-black Kalu logo.

Flowing cream interior with niches for bags — The flowing cream interior — folded plaster surfaces create cave-like niches for the bags.

Cream-coloured interior with shoes displayed in niches — A view through the cream-coloured interior — display niches throw the merchandise into relief.

Detail of a niche with a single shoe on display — A display niche — a single shoe sits on a buried light strip inside the carved surround.

Eghbal Hospital Façade, Tehran

Thin Line Architects — Mehdi Mousavinasab & Soudeh Akhondi

Location: Sattar Khan, Roodaki Junction, Azerbaijan Street, Tehran
Client: Eghbal Hospital
Design associates: Amir Saadat, Peiman Meidani, Mohammad Aghaee
Construction manager: Mehdi Mousavinasab
Construction: Shahin Ansari, Ismaeel Alizadeh
Photo: Hossein Farahani
Façade area: 1,700 m²

The Eghbal Hospital is a square-footprint city block on the Sattar Khan–Roodaki intersection in Tehran. The renovation rebuilt the building's brick envelope into a continuous folded ribbon that holds windows, plant rooms and equipment in a single grid.

The brief asked for a façade that would let the hospital read as a calming presence in a chaotic intersection. Thin Line Architects answered with a single tone of brick — a warm earth-red — and a rigorous folded plane that catches the sun without mirroring the city's noise back into the wards.

The folded façade also organises maintenance access and the building's mechanical openings, which sit invisibly inside the fold. Inside the hospital, the new envelope means quieter wards and a much more consistent light condition.