ContemporARchitectURban Designers Group, which was created by Ali Andaji Garmaroodi, Amin Monsefi and Reza Roudneshin, shared with us their winning proposal for the Mehrshahr Residential Complex Design Competition located in Karaj which is the fifth largest city of Iran, and located near Tehran. The main purpose of the client and the organizer of this competition was to find new ways to develop and build houses for middle layer people of the society in order to have an complex suits to Iranian needs and culture, which has had missed in the recent years. More images and project description after the break.
The organizer of this competition was the Physical Development Research Center and this competition was held between 30 Iranian consulting engineering companies and designers groups to develop 6000 residential units in a site with about 750000sqm area.
The designer group traced 6 main strategies to design the master plan. First, having a main space to unite the elements of the complex, second, designing characterized spaces, third, observing the hierarchy from public spaces to private ones, fourth, observing the meaning of housing district, fifth, distribution of activities according to spatial hierarchy and structure of the complex and finally, having continuity in public green spaces.
The complex includes 3 residential districts which are united by a longitudinal garden together. The design concepts of this garden are inspired by traditional and old Iranian gardens. Regional activities such as commercials, cultural and religious buildings are designed along this axis. Each district has a local park which is located in the middle part and joined to the central park by a pedestrian path. Main local buildings such as mosque, primary schools and open sport spaces are located in these parks and have easy pedestrian access to residential blocks.
Residential neighborhoods designed around the local park and each one has a middle yard with green spaces and grounds for playing children. Kindergarten, meeting space, rest and leisure rooms, some shops and janitor houses are located on the ground floors. Each neighborhood has combination of residential blocks with different heights in order to have different interesting spaces. Besides, each block consists of various houses to response different family tastes.
Architects: ContemporARchitectURban Designers Group Location: Karaj, Iran Category: Competitions, Urban, Residential
