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Architects: Sinze Studio
- Area: 320 m²
- Year: 2023
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Photographs:Khatereh Eshqi
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Lead Architects: Hojat Zeynali
Text description provided by the architects. In Dopendar, we faced two challenges: first, viewing architecture as a cultural matter, and second, the two different perspectives of Hamed and Motahareh as the project clients regarding the house in their imagination. On the one hand, our point of view for reading the traditional architecture of Yazd and its relationship with contemporaneity, and on the other hand, the dual economic and social conditions of the society and its effect on the sensitivity of employers to fulfill their desires and tastes, which cannot be hidden, made the situation difficult.
It seemed that finding a solution between these two challenges by utilizing the dual mindset of Hamed and Motahareh about the house could be effective; whether from their different perspectives, the architecture is a modernist generic building with large openings to the outside and a green roof space, or a house with the apparent characteristics of traditional Yazd architecture and windows with limited views to the outside.
Our answer to this problem was to create a space that could be an action in line with these two challenges. The double concept was placed on the border between two introverted and Dom-Ino diagrams in the form of a duplex; On the one hand, it tries to get close to the pattern of the central courtyard, and on the other hand, it tries to get rid of this introversion and transform itself into an intermediate space by creating a corbel-like gap on the north front and an open and closed wicker envelope on the south front. The entrance gap in the northern front tries to create a rupture by reading the two elements of the entrance and corridor in traditional Yazd houses, which form a definite boundary through an intermediary door and a solid, roofed wall. Thus, the entrance door element, by moving and getting closer to the central courtyard and the inner arena, transforms the entrance and corridor into each other and places them in constant dialogue with each other and with the inner area and the alley. As if in a transition-like process, the concept of border is mixed and diluted with features of depth.
Continuing, the central courtyard (the client, based on their lived experience in the house, calls it the orange courtyard) plays the role of the outer courtyard in the traditional two-courtyard houses of Yazd, which, due to the function of the ground floor as a reception area, creates a semi-public space. On the first floor, the host house, as the inner area in the traditional houses of Yazd, is considered a place where the inner courtyard (the client, based on their lived experience in the house, calls it the blue courtyard) by activating the height feature and being located at a higher level than the ground floor, distances itself from its traditional form and transforms the physical boundary between itself and the central (outer) courtyard into a boundary with vertical openness.
The blue courtyard, on the one hand, by creating a suspended passageway, enters into a limited visual dialogue with the central courtyard and reaches the room, and on the other hand, it sits with the living room and small kitchen on the first floor. The inner area and the inner courtyard, by opening the wicker envelope towards the big courtyard, become an intermediate space and an embrace for it; as if it wants to free itself from constraints but still has freedom of action. Additionally, the wicker envelope, with the ability to fold, acts dually as a privacy screen for the first floor and a shade for the ground floor. When open, it becomes a shade for the ground floor, and when closed, a retreat for the inner area.
It can be said that in this project, the two-courtyard introvert pattern, with its critical stance towards its traditional type, becomes a turning point for reaching an understanding between the two perspectives, where the confrontation of different intellectual assumptions embraces each other and reaches tranquillity.
