Khan Khaneh

Khan Khaneh is a renovation project in the city of Khansar, Isfahan province, by Se-Baer Studio (Mohsen Khazdooz and Adib Iravani). The project is the product of the interaction between the existing structure of a roughly forty-year-old masonry house and the probable lifestyle of a Khansari family with the dream of "a house for living." The house belongs to a local family whose children reside in Tehran and commute weekly; they wanted an independent space within the ancestral home.

The architects decided to transform this house — whose structure resembled a single-storey apartment — by subtracting portions of its original mass, converting it into a house with interior courtyards. Their approach rests on two principles: first, subtracting from the original mass to open up spaces and create interior courtyards; and second, adding density minimally and utilising the roof as a new, usable courtyard. The design basis took shape around a nine-square grid overlaid upon the existing structure, making it possible to carve voids within the dense mass — spaces emptied of matter that admitted light, air, and rain into the intermediate layers.

On the roof, by inflating portions of the mass following the structural grid below, the voids between them were activated and the rooftop transformed into a usable surface housing small, independent units. The entire structure was uniformly wrapped in white textured cement, with new green-coloured volumes positioned among the old walls. Upper-floor rooms use lightweight LSF construction.

During the 25th Memar Award jury deliberations, juror Nasrin Seraji praised Khan Khaneh for having "eliminated corridors — the only paths of access are the staircases themselves, vertical or horizontal. The communal spaces are the connection points, and the rest of the spaces are private. This idea of eliminating service spaces and turning all spaces into ones that simultaneously serve and are used has created a hierarchy-free structure." The project received 10 points and placed 2nd in Renovation.