A House in Jolfa District

A House in the Jolfa District of Isfahan stands in the old neighborhood at the closest distance from Jolfa Square and the historic churches, where the porous old residential fabric has given way to small plots with new building regulations. Designed by Elham Geramizadeh and Ehsan Hosseini of Logical Process in Architectural Design, designing an infill house that derives its existence from its courtyards was a challenging proposition in this context. The result is a miniature collage of experiential sequences — the presence of time in the irregular connection of spaces, the interweaving of front and back, inside and outside. Height restrictions imposed by the historic district led the house to sink into the ground, creating a sunken garden — bright and cool — that gathers interior spaces around it. The southern breeze cools in the shadow of the sunken garden and, passing through interior spaces, finds its way out through the rear courtyards. The project took shape based on designing sequences of the house's continuous spaces — the very private courtyard as a design of experience. With a built area of 495 square meters on a 230-square-meter site, the house won First Place in the Individual Dwellings category at the 21st Memar Award (2021) with 9 points.