Location: Anjireh Township, next to Bagh-e Aghajoun Client: Reza Keshavarz Design Team: Maryam Tabatabaei, Ehsan Khorsandi Construction: Meysam Ebrahimi, Amin Rezaei, Hossein Rayan Structure: Gholamreza Namavarchi Electrical Systems: Reza Eskandari Mechanical Systems: Pouyan Esfandiari Graphics: Neda Alizadeh, Ehsan Khorsandi Photography: Arash Khajeh Akhtaran Built Area: 650 sq.m. Site Area: 3,500 sq.m.
The Ordibehesht Garden House is located in the gardens of Anjireh Township along the northern axis of Shiraz. The desire for maximum connection with the garden, the manner in which inhabitants perceive their surroundings, and the importance of an equivalent understanding of exterior and interior space led to the building's design being conceived from the center outward, drawing the site's forces from inside to outside. The presence of two garden entrance gates and the force exerted by the mass of trees near the building shaped the principal cuts of the structure, allowing the trees to move freely between the buildings while providing maximum sunlight in winter and minimum in summer. This enabled the spatial arrangement to respond to lighting and wind circulation. This orientation also provided views and landscapes across different seasons with maximum transparency and ideal temperature, while simultaneously separating public and private spaces for the inhabitants. The interior spaces and the main sitting area
were connected to the porches through windows with maximum operability, and the porches created the possibility of extending the interior space into the garden at various elevation levels. The central greenhouse, with its multiple functions, provided vertical connection from the lower level to the ground floor while enabling maximum light intake from the south side. By encompassing part of the garden, the greenhouse warms the interior environment in winter through its greenhouse effect, and in summer, with the help of its pivot windows under the shade of adjacent canopy trees, it creates a cross-breeze through air suction. Given the initial concept of having a space with natural ventilation, the positioning and manner of openings, as well as the outdoor pool, were located to create maximum air circulation within the building during the warm seasons. The breeze cools as it passes over the water and, passing through the interior spaces, finds its way out through the backyard and the greenhouse.
Individual Dwellings Category
Location: East Hasht Behesht Street, Lahore Street, Todeshki Alley (55), No. 12 Client: Majid Sokout Design Team: Amirhossein Tavakoli, Hamid Hosseini, Saeed Moavi, Shahab Shamaizadeh, Erfan Tayebani Construction: Ahmad Abedi Supervision: Tarh-e Avval Architecture Office Structure: Mohammadreza Nilipour Electrical Systems: Alireza Sadeghi Mechanical Systems: Alireza Joui Graphics: Tarh-e Avval Architecture Office Photography: Faribarz Alaghehband Built Area: 600 sq.m. Site Area: 220 sq.m.
Tarh-e Avval Architecture Office, Mohammad Shamaizadeh, Shirin Sharifar
The simplicity of the building's structural form, its static form harmonious with and related to the city, legible and distinctive circulation spaces, and the presence of diverse pause spaces on different floors are among the project's main characteristics. Connection with the city through creating an in-between space (the entrance) and establishing a green haven inside seeks to harmonize and connect the project both externally and internally. The exterior and interior (private) green courtyards play a key role in creating the building's structure and circulation paths, and are the primary agent of spatial quality in the project. Silence, tranquility, greenery, and light at the heart of the house influence all spaces. The transparency of interior spaces through the freedom of the open plan and the privacy and security of the building from outside, achieved through the design of perforated bricks, are among the project's other features. The multiplicity of courtyards and the use of the concept of open space in the depth of the project, in addition to creating a sense of tranquility and tempering the space, provides natural light to different parts of the project. Furthermore, the presence of an interior courtyard and the connection between floors (void) largely enables
air circulation throughout the project and the creation of natural ventilation. Given the light-receiving facades on the eastern and southern sides, on the eastern facade the connecting elements (stairs) and the perforated screen of the facade serve as protection against eastern sunlight, while the living functions and residential activities have been transferred to the western side (protected by the western neighbor's wall) and the southern side to ensure the best conditions for light and heat quality in the main spaces. In this project, the basement is designed as a space for hosting large and special gatherings, and the built-in cabinets on the walls serve as storage for various items. The ground floor, guest suite, and duplex floors are designed for a family of three. The use of smart systems in electrical and mechanical installations, irrigation, audio and visual systems, intercom, as well as solar water heaters for domestic hot water are among the project's other features.
Sarvestan Villa, Mazandaran
Location: Siah Rud, Sarvestan Township Clients: Reza Gharanfoli, Alireza Soghatchi Project Manager: Maziar Dowlatabadi Senior Designers: Deniz Ebrahimi Azar, Moein Nik Ayin Lead Designer: Tina Shah Nazari Design Team: Saeed Sadeghian, Saeed Yousefvand, Noora Sam, Soona Taghipour, Reza Valinejad, Mohammad Javad Masoumi Supervision: Kaizen Company, Deniz Ebrahimi Azar Structure, Construction, Electrical and Mechanical Systems: Kaizen Company Photography: Did Studio Built Area: 550 sq.m. Site Area: 600 sq.m.
The architecture of the Sarvestan Township has a common language, consisting of pitched roofs and brick, cement, and wood materials. Given the township's local architectural language, the typology of northern houses (extroverted) and the kiosk typology (nine-square) were combined. Among the existing classical structures in architecture, extensive studies were conducted on the nine-square structure. The township's defined geometric rules provided a pretext for us to exercise and introduce this structure; thus, in the study phase and contextual analysis, we selected the nine-square pattern for shaping the project. In the initial programming phase, we dedicated the center of the nine-square to an interior courtyard connected to the exterior courtyard through a semi-enclosed open space in the middle, so the project's relationship with the courtyard occurs in two qualities — semi-enclosed interior and open exterior — and accordingly the two southern squares were allocated to the pool area, which connects with the interior and exterior courtyard as well as the central pergola. In effect, the decision made at the programming layer was
organized through the nine-square grid, and each space was defined within one section of the project's program. At the ground level, the public space and an independent guest suite relate transparently to the courtyards; on the first floor, the private spaces including a private vestibule and three master bedrooms; thus the project's program was defined across three levels. By assigning each space to one square and activating two perpendicular service axes between the programs with Mondrian proportions, the project takes shape. The active axes are in fact brick piers that house the project's service and circulation programs and also serve as three-dimensional organizing elements that function as spatial dividers. At the roof level, this axis is dedicated to a pathway and roof garden, and also the jacuzzi, which is level with this axis under the sloped roof, makes its presence felt within the interior void.
Location: Bandar Mahshahr, Industrial Zone, Atlantic Township, Bandar Emam Street, Fajr-e Yekom, Esfand Alley Client: Mohammad Ghanavati Design Team: Hooman Tahmtanzadeh, Marjan Banaei, Hossein Salavati Khoshghalb Construction: Amin Tahmtanzadeh, Mohammad Vazayefi Supervision: Tamouz Architecture Office Structure: Mohammad Attar Roshan Electrical Systems: Arash Babazadeh Mechanical Systems: Faraji, Shahed Ashrafi Graphics: Niloofar Kanani, Mohammad Vatanchi Photography: Did Studio Built Area: 380 sq.m. Site Area: 872 sq.m.
Tamouz Architecture Office, Hooman Tahmtanzadeh, Marjan Banaei, Hossein Salavati Khoshghalb
A house belonging to a family of three, and the mother's house, which had been built in recent years at the southeastern end of the lot. The former house was demolished and the mother's house had to be preserved. The Ghanavati family requested the design of a single-story house, as they believed a single-story house would allow for more interaction, connection, and contact. Thus, the effort was made to translate this quality and request into space. Differences in height within the cross-sections provided variety within the single-story house. The central garden bed of the living space, in addition to providing light and ventilation, became a means of fulfilling the homeowner's enduring love of flowers and plants. A house free from complexity — the inhabitants are part of the body of the house, creating dynamism and movement within the house's tranquility and stillness. Like those flowerpots scattered freely in the corners of the courtyard.
The goal was to solve the problem and harmonize the family's living needs, their characteristics, and the required functions of a house with regard to the existing conditions of the land, context, climate, and weather, in order to achieve the most sustainable answer possible, and ultimately to discover the geometric structure aligned with it for organizing the space. Small and service spaces were placed in the east (given the presence of the mother's house) and the living space in the west, connected to the northern and southern courtyards. The roof parapets were raised, and a protected space formed in connection with the mother's house, with a bridge connecting the two — perhaps a place for a greenhouse in the future. Thus the skyline is calmed and the house appears simple from the outside. Closed from the exterior, sheltered from the sun, all spaces and access points are in harmony with the region's hot and humid climate.
Location: 13 km east of Nowshahr, Dozdak Road, Boustan Dovvom Street, corner of Keshavarz Dead-End, No. 14 Client: Mohammad Hassan Mazloumi Design Team: Hana Khademi, Delaram Didehvari, Mahyar Tasallot, Amin Izadpanah, Saeed Moradian Construction: Gorouh-e Sakhtar, Behdad Heydari Structure: Mohammad Ali Panahi Mechanical Systems: Engineer Mehrjou Electrical Systems: Engineer Mashhadbaan Graphics: Dorsa Harandian, Saba Ebrahimzadeh Photography and Film: Did Studio Built Area: 400 sq.m. (in 3 above-ground floors) Site Area: 400 sq.m.
Didar House is an effort to interweave the interior and exterior spaces of the building, creating an opportunity to experience an indoor-outdoor life. Breaking the classic binary boundary of inside-outside and penetrating into the building from outside has been an important design goal. This has enabled maximum penetration of natural light into the interior spaces and the tangency of exterior and interior space. Didar Villa is situated between the Caspian Sea coastline and the forests of the northern slopes of the Alborz mountain range. This project is located on a 12 x 40 meter site with a north-south elongation, in an area that benefits from a unique view and landscape. From the south it faces the mountains and forests of Nowshahr, from the north (on the building's top floor) it views the sea, and from the east
it overlooks the rice paddies. Also, the regional building typology consists of one- or two-story villas with pitched and classic roofs. The complementary design approach is to create maximum views and landscapes and to take advantage of the site's visual opportunities. The use of forms harmonious with the project's context and respect for the height constraints of the neighborhood helped us achieve a project that is seamless with the site's context. In this project, we sought to address the arrangement of the building's functions by excavating from the main form while maintaining its principal framework. Alongside this spatial subdivision, as one moves through the building, each sequence offers a different view of other sections; the name of the house is indebted to this quality and the project's unique landscapes.
Location: Lavasan, Emameh Client: Ali Ghassaei Design Team: Reyhaneh Miraftab, Samin Mostafaei, Soroush Zeidanian, Bita Aboutalebi Construction: Farid Behbahani Supervision: Olgou Architecture Office Structure: Afshin Masoudi Graphics: Mahsa Esmaeili Photography: Mohammad Hassan Ettefagh Built Area: 300 sq.m. Site Area: 3,900 sq.m.
This site and the reality of a weekend house presented us with an opportunity to explore a kind of extra-urban living on a sloped piece of land in an elevated retreat forty-five kilometers from Tehran, organized by two friends. The cold and harsh geography of the area has been so invaded by speculators that even the faint local regulations cannot withstand the rapid conversion of natural terrain into small sellable lots and dense construction on them. The coexistence of heterogeneous small and large buildings has defaced the memory of Emameh's gardens, and it seems that in the absence of law, nothing good comes through the filter of personal profit for others and the environment. In such conditions, taking refuge in the depth of a four-thousand-square-meter lot and building less than the permitted allowance can be a critical reaction to the prevailing clichés of the surroundings, and simultaneously by proposing a way of life in proximity to nature, perhaps one can provide an alternative for building in the remaining gardens of the area for the growing number of applicants for these lands. In this settlement, users are allowed to experience a different mode of communal living that provides greater encounter with nature — nature that has been pushed away in the city — whereby three separate seventy-square-meter caves are excavated
around a cavity at the center of the land, providing all the needs of this residential camp: the reception building benefits from maximum light and landscape, while the bedroom building, conversely, with minimum light and landscape on the other side of the courtyard, is a minimal dormitory — to create a pronounced difference between being in company and deciding to rest, and a contrast between quantity and quality of space. The third building houses the pool and mechanical spaces. The interior courtyard, through a wide porch, empties the hillside soil toward the view of the facing village to the west, to be visible among the garden trees in all seasons. In this way, the open and semi-open spaces benefit from natural light and landscape without being exposed to overlooking, and the project itself preserves the natural view for the neighbors. To move between buildings, one must touch the region's nature, and this experience makes the enjoyment of each space independent and unique. The central courtyard and the wide adjacent porch organize movement in open space, and the seventy-square-meter porch enables the inhabitants to gather alongside the hall and the public view. The land upon arriving at the project is the same old cherry orchard. The settlement's spaces have emerged from excavating various faces of the land, and the feeling of living within/adjacent to the land exists in all spatial pockets. The project's structure is a concrete container planted in the depth of the earth, providing the possibility of restoring the garden's lost trees on top of itself while simultaneously covering most of the project's interior and exterior surfaces, in harmony with the wild and mountainous nature of the surroundings.
Location: Royan, Venoush, Tirkadeh Olia Village, Afshan Township, Registration No. 513 Client: Minou Ramezani Construction: Jaryan Architecture Office Supervision: Hamidreza Samimihaa Structure: Hadi Habibi Electrical Systems: Soheil Saniee Mechanical Systems: Aria Mousavi, Amir Nahavandi Photography: Did Studio Built Area: 250 sq.m. Site Area: 550 sq.m.
Jaryan Architecture Office, Farhad Khadempour, Vida Mohseni
The project site was in a township with approximately twenty-year-old villas. The land was bordered to the north and east by a citrus orchard, to the west by a hedge and the western neighbor, and to the south with relatively little distance to the southern neighbor's building. The client's wish was to design a villa for the comfort of all family members. The definition and expectations of each generation of the family regarding the word "comfort" led us to focus more on the living behaviors of each member of the household on a case-by-case basis. Two generations — the first generation of parents and the second generation of children — dictate different living behaviors. The parents' definition of comfort was tranquility during the evening hours and calmer recreations, which we named "gentle living." On the other hand, the definition of comfort for the second generation was excitement at irregular hours of the day (morning, evening, especially night), which we named "exciting living." Generation one is active in the morning; generation two is asleep. Generation one goes to bed early at night; generation two throws parties. Generation one hosts in the afternoon; generation two does not like gentle living — and so on. This is how, in the project's design, we used the empty space (central void) as a separating joint to preserve the living privacy of each generation, and we began the design from the first floor where we had laid out the bedrooms. The central void became the separator between the parents' bedroom and the children's bedrooms. The spatial system of the other required spaces took shape around this central void. On the ground floor, the reception and kitchen were placed on one side, and the private living room and guest room — which also served as a kind of quarantine room — on the other. On the second floor, the attic room on one side of the void was dedicated to play and exciting living, while the rooftop space was shaped for sunbathing and gentle living. In this way, the spatial organization was shaped for each generation so that, in addition to preserving that generation's privacy, the possibility of communal activities also existed. Connection between the spaces on both sides of the central void was designed through stairs and a bridge, which also served as a connector for interaction between the two generations. Finally, considerations such as the building's climatic orientation along the east-west axis to create cross-ventilation, as well as attention to the site's suitable views and landscapes, shaped the project's final volume. On the project site, before the design was entrusted to us, all vegetation had been burned and dried out. Two pomegranate trees on the eastern wall of the site had survived this devastation. We preserved these two trees and created openings toward them. The first tree faced the ground-floor guest room and the parents' bedroom on the first floor. The second tree's branches entered the northern terrace on the first floor. Two trees that remained and became reminders of the project's two generations.
1- Project site, land area 550 sq.m.
3- Defining the entrance space
5- Zoning of spaces based on the manner of living and generational adjacency, central void
7- Creating porosity in the facade with regard to privacy, regional climate, and surrounding landscapes 8- Final volume
6- Creating access between zones
4- Sloped roof: regional climate; flat roof: sunbathing and visual views to surrounding landscapes; client's requirement
2- Building volume based on climate and regional regulations, solid and void
Location: Royan, Farhang-e Dovvom Street, Shaghayegh Alley, No. 14 Client: Kiarash Omrani Construction: Reza Pooladvand Supervision: Mahdi Soleimani Structure: Alireza Najib Electrical Systems: Ahmad Pourmahdi Mechanical Systems: Mohammad Farmani Graphics: Reza Pooladvand Photography: Sajjad Kashani Built Area: 205 sq.m. Site Area: 260 sq.m.
Ihaam Office, Reza Pooladvand IHAAM OFFICE, REZA POOLADVAND
The project is situated on the edge of a rice paddy. Given the area's beautiful natural surroundings, the main challenge of the project was the house's relationship with nature while simultaneously meeting the client's desire for a house with minimum overlooking and maximum possible tranquility. The north-south orientation of the site determined the house's placement on it. Given the climatic conditions and the presence of neighbors to the east and west, the western wall was designed without any openings, and the eastern wall with only a single opening as the house's entrance; furthermore, the great thickness of these two walls reduced the house's connection with the outside on these two sides to a minimum. Given this point and the issue of ideal lighting, the house's openings were placed on the north and south sides. To create a relationship between this solid volume and nature, each space of the house was conceived as a camera, each with an aperture facing nature that frames a view of it. In effect, each space of the house is the extension of one of these frames. Finding the best view combined with minimum overlooking for each aperture according to the importance of each space's function was one of the directing elements of the house's formation. Given the placement of the rice paddy and mountain views to the south and the absence of neighbors on this side, the apertures along which the house's main spaces were formed were placed on this side. To further connect the reception area with nature, a garden bed was placed in front of it; when the reception's full-length sliding window is opened,
this garden bed connects to the reception space. The spatial extension of the southern aperture on the ground floor has shaped the house's reception area. The house's staircase was formed by connecting the extensions of two northern and southern apertures together; thus this staircase functions like a cavity within the building mass that, in addition to vertical connection, also links the north and south of the project site. The lighting of the house's bathrooms was achieved by creating two apertures in the ceiling; thus the house's bathrooms, while maintaining privacy, have adequate light and ventilation and frame a portion of the sky. To create a panoramic view toward the pristine southern landscape and to create a gathering space on the upper floor, a terrace was placed in front of the two main bedrooms of the house — this terrace is a viewpoint toward nature. Ultimately, the ensemble of these apertures has shaped a house in which each space frames a view of nature at its end. From the exterior, these apertures function as fissures within a solid volume that shape the house's facade. To create greater purity, uniform materials were used, and for greater harmony with the surrounding green nature, the house's unified mass was rendered in white. The contrast between the solid exterior mass of the house and the transparency of its interior creates an ambiguity — an ambiguity that also exists in the different experience of living inside the friend's house versus the experience of seeing it from outside.
Location: Moshtagh-e Avval, Bagh-e Borj Alley Client: Mahdi Fakhr Taha Four-Cut Brick Design: Soroush Asadi Construction and Supervision: Babak Karimpour, Omid Eshraghi Structure: Soheil Owladnia Graphics: Ali Shafigh Photography: Mohammad Soroush Joushesh, Sara Mahmoudmanesh Bricklayer: Mohammad Haghnavaz Built Area: 290 sq.m. Site Area: 106 sq.m.
B.A. Architecture Studio, Babak Karimpour, Ali Shafigh
In many old neighborhoods of Isfahan, one encounters small-scale and dense parcels — some fragmented by urban development plans (street-cutting, widening, etc.) and others the result of property subdivisions by their owners — that today, in public perception, lack the necessary value for investment or standard living. Bagh-e Borj House offers a different narrative to the general course of construction and habitation in the city of Isfahan. The present small-scale lot is the result of subdividing a residential parcel into several smaller pieces by the previous owners in the heart of the alleys and lanes of Isfahan's Khajou neighborhood... Situated at the end of a dead-end alley, with a limited entrance width, surrounded on all four sides by neighboring buildings, and with small dimensions and scale — these were among the shortcomings for investment and construction of an independent residential unit with living value, which, alongside Isfahan's height regulations, constituted the most significant constraints facing the designers. In designing the single-unit Bagh-e Borj house for a family of two, the manner of dealing with these constraints to produce a high-quality living space and create added value was the project's principal challenge. Looking at the condition of the adjacencies and the project being surrounded by neighboring buildings, the main strategy of the design called for an introverted building amid the existing disturbances of the environment. Architectural design considerations: — Relocating the courtyard to increase light depth — Centrality of the central courtyard and its close connection with all building spaces
— Providing natural light to the floors by modifying the floor height system and the building's physical system — Creating a continuous and dynamic spatial connection between open and closed spaces — Creating spatial independence while maintaining cohesion and integrity — Spatial variety of the independent residential unit and the multifunctionality of some spaces — Visual coherence in a disturbed environmental context — Limiting views to surrounding buildings and vice versa — Coexistence and harmony with the architecture of Isfahan's historic core For limiting views to neighbors and vice versa, a type of screen was needed that could address the following requirements: — Minimizing views from the adjacent neighbor to the project's spaces and vice versa — Minimizing the shadow cast by surfaces with openings (maximum light passage) — Harmonizing surfaces with openings with other surfaces in the project — Simplicity of construction — The size of the body openings had to be such as to prevent neighborhood pigeons from nesting inside the cavities (pollution from bird droppings is a problem also encountered in the maintenance of heritage buildings, typically managed through methods such as creating ridges of broken glass or nails on edges, or in some cases using interference devices). After designing several modules and different patterns and testing their light and view performance, we arrived at a perforated brick module that met all our requirements. However, a unique brick module needed to be produced exclusively for this project — a need that came with its own production challenges, especially due to the proportions of the brick module.
Location: Farrokhshahr, Baghshahr Garden Villa Complex Client: Amir Kouhian Design Team: Maryam Sodavi, Arefeh Ali Akbari, Setareh Soleimani, Zahra Vakili Construction: Amin Kouhian Supervision: Hossein Sodavi Structure: Mohammadreza Kamranian Electrical Systems: Hamidreza Irajmanesh Mechanical Systems: Alireza Nader Tehrani Graphics: Arefeh Ali Akbari Photography: Did Studio, Vahid Golparvar Built Area: 460 sq.m. Site Area: 1,500 sq.m.
The diagram of the Baghshahr Villa is a critique of the existing and limited plan organization within domino structures that, in addition to influencing the structure of cities, have also affected other architectural typologies such as villas. This project, by virtue of its conditions, begins from the diagram rather than the site, and liberation from the spatial constraints is the initial idea of its formation. In other words, the spaces, based on the program, were defined in a completely free and independent manner instead of being organized within a generally structural and limited framework. The significance of this change of strategy lies in the possibility of creating variety in different spaces by virtue of the program defined for the space, or even the aspirations of the user or designer for that space — and on this basis the project's spaces took shape. The box, as a regular and defined geometry, given the
elongated and directional site of the project, was consciously selected as a spatial structure. The fundamental issue of the project was the manner of dealing with the arrangement and placement of volumes on the site. Establishing connections between boxes through interlocking and sharing space with one another, in addition to responding to the connection of spaces, could lead to the formation of unexpected spatial events in interior and exterior spaces. Design ideas on one hand and the client's wishes on the other, in a harmonious process, guided the project to its final form, such that being in each space and the path of passage from each space to another creates diverse spatial experiences for the user.
Location: Motel-e Ghoo, Esbchin Village Client and Construction: Ali Khalili Photography: Ramtin Niksirat Site Area: 130 sq.m.
Espeh House, or the White House, was built on the banks of a river in the city of Motel-e Ghoo for an artist couple (graphic designers). The spatial relationships, per the client's request, are a combination of the adjacency of work and life, so that the two could attend to their professional preoccupations in tranquility. The graphic design studio is adjacent to the public thoroughfare to facilitate client access to the office. The building has one dedicated bedroom space, for which a light well was considered for lighting and natural ventilation. The other living spaces including the sitting room, dining area, and kitchen were laid out
linearly parallel to the river so that the occupant may enjoy a pleasant view of the courtyard and surrounding trees. Just as purity and unpretentiousness were the defining characteristics of this collaboration from the outset of the design, the construction process followed the same course, so that a calm project free from excess could be created... . This project is a response to a chaos that is difficult to control, and like a cold silence, it is a pure and unattainable voice within an environment that occurs through a few short, haiku-like gestures: clear, direct, and decisive.
Location: Royan, Farhang-e Dovvom Street, Shaghayegh Alley (2/4), No. 13 Client: Parmida Eskandartabar Design Collaborator: Masoumeh Matani Construction: Kambiz Eskandartabar Photography: Mohammad Hassan Ettefagh Site Area: 150 sq.m.
"Do you know what it feels like to live in a perfume bottle? Our house was that perfume bottle." Nizar Qabbani. A little further from the city's bustle, at the end of Shaghayegh Alley, we have built a house — all white. A house that functions as white not only in appearance but in its essence as well. Calm, empty, and stimulating to the imagination. Parmis House is an attempt to reclaim a life that is being depleted day by day and worn away by time. In this project, however, contrary to the conventional diagrams of northern Iran where the courtyard sits like a ring around the house, we have placed the courtyard like a nucleus at the heart of the project — in order to create, through an empty and uniform spatial expanse, the conditions for such an atmosphere. The inhabited walls are soft protective guards, keepers of the house's secrets and the life of its inhabitants. Yet such a space requires proper fluidity and ventilation. Therefore, on the building's northern wall, a gap was created for the entrance and openings for the required air circulation as well.
It is hoped that the inhabitants of this house will experience a different way of living — a house for making memories and experiencing presence. A place for their stories and events. The central courtyard here is a place that will gather together the light and fragrance of life. This courtyard has also resulted in direct lighting for all the house's spaces without disturbance or overlooking in relation to the neighbors — an issue that is the primary concern of today's architects in designing single-unit houses situated in urban fabric. And so... Immersed in silence, I gaze at the fourfold lights... The tranquility after rain... The soft and delicate lines of sunshine when they wake me... The dawn breeze that finds its way into this white Kaaba and sings the song of solitude... .
Andorouni: Making Home in a Kerman That Is Not
Location: Imam Hassan Boulevard, Alley No. 33 Client: Afshin Amani Design Collaborator: Kimia Saeidi Construction: Hamid Motamedi Supervision: Reza Naseripour Taklu Structure: Abbas Mohseni Electrical Systems: Mehrdad Shafiee Mechanical Systems: Bagher Vakili Graphics: Reza Naseripour Taklu Photography: Mohammad Hassan Ettefagh Built Area: 200 sq.m. Site Area: 200 sq.m.
The project is a house for the client's young family. The lot is situated in an unformed environment, awaiting a future emerging from Kerman's new urban expansion.
Design process Issue one: In recent decades, urban sprawl has replaced compact cities, causing several generations of residents of these areas to remain effectively "city-less" in practice. The lot is located in one of these expansions. The initial encounter with the site brought a kind of disappointment, which was in fact a crucial moment — the project's fate was determined by the awareness of that very moment. Issue two: The project lot is north of the thoroughfare. The municipality's rule of sixty percent occupancy of the northern lot, and the possibility of a 1.5-meter cantilever on the first floor. The regulations have transformed a particular type of spatial relationship, lighting, and so on into a "dominant typology" for northern duplex houses, which has four notable negative points: first, the building's entrance opens directly from the courtyard into the heart of the house; second, the short time from the street entrance to the building entrance; third, the occupation of the courtyard's public view with car parking; fourth, the blindness and unavoidable lighting of the northern facade spaces from the low-quality so-called light well. Problem-solving and design process: (a) The chaotic environment made us despair of views outward and of creating a valuable connection with the immediate surroundings. We decided to design a house oriented inward, to protect "life" from the environment. An introverted layout (andorouni) could be a suitable approach, but the 120-square-meter footprint weighed on the mind for accommodating a central courtyard. In Kerman's historic fabric, wherever lot dimensions were a hindrance, the method of positioning the building on two or three sides was used, creating diverse forms of two general typologies: L and U.
We designed and evaluated diverse combinations of these two typologies for two floors. (b) Correcting the entry to the building from the courtyard and taking it to the depth of the house, increasing the distance between the street entrance and the building entry and adorning the entry experience as a linear garden, striving for southern light intake and establishing a favorable relationship with the outside, eliminating the undesirable light well and converting it to a living courtyard — all guided the selection among the solutions. (c) The portion of the final option's body that conformed to the dominant typology box of northern duplex houses, and was in relation with the immediate physical surroundings, we treated as neutral, white, and flat. But the portion that was carved to house life, we designed in brick — elaborate and crafted. Brick is the historic material of sentiment and the spirit of place in Kerman. (d) Beauty has no veil of concealment — the chaotic environment prevented the house from having a desirable view. We decided the house should be a view for the environment, and we replaced "view from the house" with "view to the house." We opened a limited frame from the interior courtyard(s) to the environment to create curiosity and a point of hope in the observer's heart. (e) Living in open space is the lost quality of today's houses, while for Kerman's climate, living in open and enclosed-yet-open-to-outside space is a distinguished quality, with the inappropriate relationship with the city being its primary obstacle. We tried to give this house an open and enclosed space that practices a new kind of relationship with the city: "concealment and restlessness."
Introverted House, Garmsar, Semnan
Location: City of Garmsar, Abbaspour Street Client: Faribarz Kolbadinejad Construction: Shahab Mirzaeian Project Manager: Shahin Taghdisian Architectural Design Team: Mahyar Akhgari, Mandana Bonyadloo, Shahin Taghdisian, Marzieh Nabizadeh BIM Management and Control: Sajjad Jafarian Construction Consultant: Amir Ghaem Maghami Construction Supervisor: Amin Karjou, Mohammad Pourhosseini Construction Collaborator: Kamran Eftekhari Structure: Benyamin Kiumarsi Structural Construction: Kamran Jalilvand Systems Design and Construction: Mohammad Bozorgnia Systems Correction: Hoofar Esmaeili, Nina Amoushahi Graphics: Sara Naseri Photography: Hamoun Moghadam (Hamoun Digital Cinema) Built Area: 504 sq.m. Site Area: 180 sq.m.
This house is a residential project within the urban fabric of Garmsar. The seventy-percent site coverage regulation, the position and progress of the neighboring buildings are the most important factors in the project's massing; however, the designer has altered the manner of massing to achieve a volumetric mass that responds to the design's fundamental questions. The main design question is how to define an independent residential unit (house) based on urban regulations on a mid-block urban lot, such that this house provides diverse spatial capabilities for family life. The volumetric mass, by advancing to the urban passage (the chamfered edge) and excavating mass within the project, has both remained faithful to the permitted footprint and endeavored to increase the cubic volume and interior space of the project. In this way, a central courtyard has taken shape within the project, extending from a sunken garden in the basement to the highest level as a void connected to all spaces of the project. Given the climate of Garmsar, the reinterpretation of the central courtyard of traditional houses is
desirable in terms of function and spatial division, and all spaces receive their light from it. The project is also faithful to the introverted architecture of desert regions on the exterior, shaped as several closed brick cubes. These cubes have in fact emerged from the partitioning of the interior spaces. The interior plan is divided into a nine-square grid that, depending on the floor coverage and the function of the spaces, has been modified and accommodates various functions, and ultimately manifests as three large planters at the urban scale on the rooftop. For emergency access by rescue forces in each floor, a section of the brick skin has been designed as a sliding, hollow element. This brick lattice pattern has been tried in various forms in Iran's old architecture and has been tested repeatedly in contemporary architecture as well. But in this project, by virtue of the desert climate and the project's introverted structure, it reveals its authentic characteristics.
Second floor First floor Ground floor
Chahar Khaneh Villa, Absard CHAHAR KHANEH VILLA, ABSARD
Location: Elahieh Street, Pasdaran Street, Bahman Alley Client: Majid Zamani Design Team: Ehsan Karimi, Pouneh Nasri, Yasmin Bahrami, Ali Vafadar, Alireza Soheili, Romina Ahmadi Construction: Komeil Karimi, Hamed Esmaeili, Mohammad Ali Mohammadi Supervision: Lahzeh Studio Structure: Komeil Karimi Electrical Systems: Hamed Keighobadi Mechanical Systems: Reza Keyhani Graphics: Romina Ahmadi Photography: Did Studio Built Area: 400 sq.m. Site Area: 900 sq.m.
Seeking to create introverted spaces, we implemented the concept of the Iranian Chahar Bagh (four-garden) lines on the project site. In effect, two axes in two principal directions, and a joint at the intersection point of these two axes, shaped the core of the building. A skylight at the center of the volume and the attachment of four pure cubes to it created the overall volume. Private and public spaces were arranged within these cubes, and each space acquired its
independent identity within a brick cube. On the other hand, the interior skylight returned the transparency taken from the exterior skin to the building's interior and created for the user an experience of multi-dimensional vision in space. In addition, the placement of openings in all four cardinal directions made cross-ventilation possible and significantly aided in providing passive cooling in the public spaces.
Farjian House / In-between House, Hamedan
Location: Ostadan Street, opposite Ostadan Pastry Shop Clients: Maryam Jabbarian, Mojtaba Farjianzadeh Design Team: Sepehr Edalati Morafah, Seyed Akam Katourani, Atefeh Safakish, Alireza Moradi Meshkin Construction: Mojtaba Farjianzadeh Supervision: Seyed Akam Katourani Structure: Seyed Hashem Bathaian Electrical Systems: Seyed Reza Iranpour Mechanical Systems: Mohammad Mirzaei Photography: Mohammad Hassan Ettefagh Built Area: 404 sq.m. Site Area: 200 sq.m.
Mousavi Architects, Seyed Jalil Mousavi MOUSAVI ARCHITECTS, SEYED JALIL MOUSAVI
The manner of the architectural cell's internal relationship with the city was the principal design material for this project. The building's location is a lot obtained from the owner's old building, measuring 10 by 20 meters, situated between the busy, high-traffic Ostadan Street and an eight-meter-wide alley at the back. The main subject sought to address the question of how to create a direct/indirect relationship between the house's living space and these two exterior thoroughfares. In the old houses of the city of Hamedan, the porch (iwan) is the active lived space and the connector between interior and exterior spaces. In today's ordinary houses, the boundary between inside and outside is created by the line of walls, which, through the threshold of doors and windows, make penetration into the interior and exterior possible. In this project, by employing two brick spatial envelopes on both sides of the house, the boundary
has been transformed into two empty, habitable spaces: two semi-open/semi-closed porches, an intermediary between the family's living spaces and the street/alley. These two empty spaces have revealed the connection of the house's interior with the outside, with the sky and the horizon, and are at the same time connectors between the floors. The combination of empty spaces with the warm feeling of the color and texture of brick, together with the view of the sky and the exterior, with the white living space in between, has created a special attraction. The use of glass terraces inside these voids, in addition to emphasizing them, has made it possible for the inhabitants to experience being between earth and sky. This building consists of a ground floor: containing the entrance and circulation space, parking, a small suite and storage; and a duplex: with living and reception space, main kitchen, bathroom and guest bedroom on the first floor, and two children's bedrooms, the parents' master bedroom, a sitting room and small kitchen, and bathroom and toilet on the second floor — for a family of four.
Location: City of Ghods, Chaman Street, No. 44, Raspina Company Client: Raspina Company Design Team: Hamed Akhavizadegan, Nastaran Shahrokhi, Nima Heyat, Saba Mehrara, Mohsen Rezakhani, Nader Namvar Construction: Chahar Sotoun Technical Engineering Company Supervision: Hamed Akhavizadegan Structure: Vahid Ehyaei Electrical and Mechanical Systems: Iman Shamshadi Graphics: Nastaran Shahrokhi Photography: Mohammad Hossein Hamzehlouei Built Area: 80 sq.m. Site Area: 65 sq.m.
Numbers and quantities have become the common currency of every scientific, social, or even cultural and artistic exchange, and even the emergence of paradoxical phenomena, including: the purchase of a living experience based on square meters! Accordingly, buying a house or villa, rather than being based on qualitative, behavioral, cultural, and architectural criteria, has become subject to material numbers and quantities. The effects of this phenomenon can be found in the reduction of the concept of "home" to "shelter." Is it possible to take action toward resolving these contradictions and improving the quality of living in a house? Confronting the client's need for a small, sellable house provided us with the opportunity to answer this question. We knew that many factors influence people's criteria for choosing housing, which are mostly economic, and in the most optimistic case, the clean and fault-free execution of the builder. As if the "architect" is merely an agent for maximizing the use of square footage for greater profit. Square footage that sometimes becomes the expression of our evaluation of spatial quality. Houses with low square footage are called "bachelor houses" — expressing spatial quality with an incongruent numerical quantity! It seems this process will become even more critical in the future given the prevailing conditions in society and the growing need for rapid construction systems. By examining conventional methods of rapid construction, we realized that the place of architecture in the typical form of house-building has been reduced merely to plan design. Rapid construction system + architecture (plan design) = sellable product (lacking spatial value). In this model, the builder, aiming to reduce construction time and deliver the product early at the lowest cost, uses conventional construction methods that all confine
architecture to existing structural systems. To solve this challenge, we changed the model in a direction different from the client's and the market's thinking: Architecture of design (spatial and detail design) + execution system suited to the design = livable product (possessing spatial and constructional qualities). In this model, architecture seeks to restore the forgotten layers of life in a home to the spaces, whether in plan design, in the manner of construction, or in the details of building. The result of this model is the achievement of producing a new type of livable space that, although created with small square footage and high construction speed, possesses qualitative characteristics and changes the repetitive cliches of current residential units in the country — cliches such as: allocating the worst and smallest space to the bathroom, maximum use of roofed space, absence of detail design, disregard for the building's lifespan, and so on. So this time, a "home" can be exchanged through the following definitions: — A small house but with a high ceiling and a glass sitting room for daydreaming — With a mezzanine featuring a work space and a private sleeping porch — With a bathroom having space for a bathtub facing greenery — With a kitchen having a flexible dining area — With a storage and mechanical enclosure, a porch for watching, a cozy corner for solitude, discoverable spaces and details; and...
Location: Sadra, Saadi Boulevard, Alley 3 Client: Ahmad Naghavi Design Team: Atefeh Moharreri, Bahareh Hassanzadeh, Elnaz Amiri, Ali Ashja, Hossein Manouchehri, Farimah Farhadzadeh Project Manager and Construction: Sazeh Gostaran Shiraz, Amin Moshkelgosha, Esmaeil Moshkelgosha, Ahmad Kavousi Supervision: Mahmoud Omidbakhsh Structural Designer: Amir Farshchi Mechanical Systems Designer: Mohammadreza Habibzadeh Pool Systems Designer: Padideh Estakhr, Amin Mohkemi HVAC Design and Construction: Tavan Tahvieh, Engineer Nasiri Lighting: Hamrah Ghashghaei Graphics: Ehsan Danandeh, Hossein Manouchehri, Farimah Farhadzadeh Photography: Navid Atroush Built Area: 803 sq.m. Site Area: 2,212 sq.m.
In Shiraz, in common parlance, they call a "villa" a "garden"! They invite you to their garden. The large number of gardens within and on the outskirts of Shiraz has transformed this form of urban living into an inseparable pattern of their habits and life. These customs of use and proximity to urban space are such that its future use as a "home" is given legitimacy. But the initial question was: in a "villa problem statement" and with the limited economy of land, how can the "garden" be identified and given identity not as the villa's leftover space or a scenic subject,
and not as landscaping (a combination of grounds and trees),
but as an independent subject of inquiry and identification?
Yet the concrete independence of the garden lay in the independence of the building, and the answer too lay in the give-and-take between them.
The strategy in this exercise: the organization of scattered grounds among the trees is delegated to the building,
and through this refinement, it bestows a more "expansive" and "continuous" surface to the land and trees, so as to evoke the landscape of a "garden" in the mind, and the building/villa also endeavors to recover it in the concept of "courtyard." This strategy, by enhancing the quality of the relationship between inside and outside — the building's landscape of itself — makes itself possible and consequently contributes to its concrete independence in the concept of "home." The building (home) hides behind the dense mass of trees (garden) and an economical demarcation provides the possibility of a direct, unmediated encounter between garden and home. By stabilizing the relationship between form and ground, the relationships of solid and void were also organized so as to aid in extending the courtyard into the building's interior view and to consolidate the inside-outside relationships. Static brick masses, in contrast with lightweight and transparent surfaces that marked the elements of movement, helped further define one another and create spatial contraction and expansion. Although this inquiry and its exploration guided us toward creating two independent subjects — namely "garden and home" — and its consequences, including the avoidance of creating large windows toward the "garden" and "creating degrees of enclosure" and "concentrating grounds in the courtyard," may be questioned, it guided us to a re-reading of spatial geography in this subject and a simpler, more legible, and more harmonious landscape aligned with the familiar habits of living in Shiraz's gardens.
Location: Sadra, Saadi Boulevard, Alley 3 Client: Amin Moshkelgosha Design Team: Hooman Karampour, Atefeh Moharreri, Azadeh Ostovar, Bahareh Hassanzadeh, Elnaz Amiri, Ali Ashja, Hossein Manouchehri, Farimah Farhadzadeh, Aida Abbaspour Project Manager and Construction: Sazeh Gostaran Shiraz, Amin Moshkelgosha, Ahmad Kavousi Supervision: Mahmoud Omidbakhsh Structural Designer: Ashkan Torabi Systems Designer: Tavan Tahvieh, Engineer Nasiri, Padideh Estakhr, Amin Mohkemi Lighting: Hamrah Ghashghaei Graphics: Ehsan Danandeh, Hossein Manouchehri, Farimah Farhadzadeh Photography: Navid Atroush Built Area: 560 sq.m. Site Area: 1,320 sq.m.
The issue of composing and sliding volumes over one another — a recurring subject in the exercise of villa projects. Can an opportunity be sought in the interval between the conventional language of the project and the spatial geography resulting from it? How can one change the boundary of predictability of a conventional solution?
The strategy-solution lay in the exploration of the relationship between solid-void and form-ground: In the form-ground relationship: the below-grade space was the project's primary subject of exercise. An area that did not inherently follow the project's conventional diagram! But
was simultaneously the product of the encounter between the diagram and all internal forces with the project's ground.
In the solid-void relationship: the compositions and spatial residues arising from the initial diagram gave our exercise more diverse dimensions: Aggregation (ground-floor level), Subtraction (void from basement level to ground floor, and terrace from first floor level), Contrast (collision between first-floor and ground-floor volumes), Dissonance (staircase). Meanwhile, the perpetual challenge of the competing claims of exterior and interior qualities regulated the relationships and the selection of patterns — in such a way that in this agenda, three floors would be reduced in solidity and height.
"Mian-Baft" Residential Apartment — 124, Tehran
Location: Pasdaran, Golestan-e Dovvom, No. 124 Client: Mahmoud Ghanbari Design and Rendering Team: Peyman Nozari, Mohammad Mohammadzadeh, Shaghayegh Karimi Graphics and Drafting: Alma Valipour, Mah Afarid Kazemi Model: Ali Jahani Construction: Masoud Ghanbari Structure and Mechanical and Electrical Systems: Imen Gostaran Omran Company Photography: Did Studio Supervision: Maziar Ghaseminia Built Area: 2,228 sq.m. Site Area: 450 sq.m.
Apartment Building Category
This project is a five-story residential apartment in Tehran's grid urban fabric, with the conventional mid-block building typology at a 60+2 percent regulation. The cliched identical boxes repeated side by side create a solid urban wall. The dominant fabric of this area was formerly two-story villa buildings. The project is situated on one side in continuation of this solid wall (next to several buildings in the form of maximum-density boxes) and on the other side next to a two-story villa building, and in all likelihood, for several years the project's third facade from this side will play a role in the city. Directly opposite the project is a Roman-facade apartment that has severely limited the project's view, yet on both sides of this Roman-facade building are two-story villa buildings. When the project came to us, its structure had already been built. The project's challenge for us took shape in the direction of altering the conventional mid-block box typology (with the 60+2 percent regulation): what possibilities could be discovered in relation to two subjects: 1. The building's connection and attachment to the city. 2. The connection between inside and outside. We tried to respond to this problem using several strategies: (a) The project's volume is the result of breaking and sliding two boxes over each other, where the cracks created by this displacement on both sides make the corners significant. The fracture line of these two boxes extends along the skyline and the height level of the adjacent two-story villa building. With this strategy of volume formation, we wanted to address several issues: — The first two floors of the project sit in relation with the adjacent two-story villa building and converse with it, and the effect of these villa buildings — which in the past constituted the dominant fabric of the area — is preserved in the project, and the strong lines of the urban facade extend into the project and the project's connection with the city is defined. — By using deep terraces in the corners, we created a break in the solid urban wall, and by emphasizing the corners with the placement of these terraces, we enabled the use of the open urban corridor on both sides of the Roman-facade building, which had limited the view from inside to outside to itself.
— We activated the project's third facade from the side of the adjacent villa building by extending the lines and texture onto the main facade. — We tried to distance ourselves from a two-dimensional skin and transform the project into a three-dimensional volume, and for this we used two solutions: activating the project's third facade, and connecting and extending the volume from outside to inside the project. (b) The manner of using materials and texture: To make the skin alive and variable, we used brick to create a rough and raised texture that produces different shadows and depths throughout the day. On the other hand, the rough brick texture, based on the project's volume, is drawn into the interior space, which in other words helps with the issue that we wanted to transform the facade from two-dimensional skinning into a three-dimensional volume. (c) In apartment buildings in Iran, especially in Tehran's dense grid fabric, privacy is an important issue — in other words, what possibilities can be discovered in connecting interior and exterior space in response to the issue of privacy? In this project, we used movable brick panels for three main purposes: 1. These panels give the project's volume greater unity. 2. Given that the Roman-facade building is situated at a short distance opposite the project, the presence of these panels enables the limiting of views to the opposite building and greater use of the corner terraces, which have a deeper view of the city (given that on both sides of the opposite Roman-facade building are two villa buildings). 3. During the day, given the exterior light and the fact that the interior is not visible, the panels can be opened; and at night, when the interior is brighter than the outside and the interior space is visible from outside, the panels can be closed — and this process both makes the facade variable (in keeping with the fact that the rough brick texture of the facade also creates different shadows at different hours of the day, making the skin alive and variable) and the building's architecture can function without curtains and respond to the issue of privacy.