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Architects: Razan Architects
- Area: 6500 m²
- Year: 2015
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Photographs:Hossein Farahani, Razan Architects
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Manufacturers: Alborz Alu Tech, Farid Eslami, Morteza Hosseini Manesh
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Lead Architects: Navid Emami
Text description provided by the architects. The project is located in Mohammad Shahr, on the margin of Tehran with a short distance from it. The residents of Mohammad Shahr are mostly those who work in Tehran but cannot afford a living there because of its expensive apartments (Housing price in Tehran is 6 times higher than Mohammad Shahr). The increasing population of low income people in this region has filled up all the empty lands with low quality buildings. Our project is based on one of these lands.
The Budget we had for this project was only 170€ per m².In order to reduce costs, we replaced the expensive details with simple and inexpensive ones and we used vernacular material which were from native mines of the region. The white complex of the material of façade fits the hot and dry climate of Mohammad Shahr.
In Iranian culture the relationship between neighbors is remarkable which is neglected in modern life. Neighbors used to spend some time together during the day and children used to play in the alley.
Here we designed open, semi- open and closed spaces. We made rooms for children’s playing, for reading, for exercising and a place for neighbors to hang out in order to keep the Iranian neighborhood culture alive.
Because of low price of apartments in Mohammad Shahr, the landlords sell their apartments without any extra equipment. So we tried to improve interior spaces by designing a diverse façade therefore every single unit experiments a different interior space, with no extra charge!
In the neighborhood, for the sake of security, the walls of the courtyards are high. We decided to shorten the height of the walls to share the courtyard with the city and reduce the enclosure of the alley.