The facade is the calling card of an architecture project, an often iconic and recognizable element that becomes part of the collective imaginary.
We frequently see them featured in photographs and art—such as Andreas Gursky's work, or as part of movie sets. It is almost impossible to forget the pink symmetrical façade of 'The Budapest Hotel' by director Wes Anderson, or even, in music videos or album covers, like the legendary 'Physical Grafitti' by Led Zeppelin.
The Kurdish city of Kamyaran - which sits on the transit borders of Kurdistan and Iran - is a developing city that experienced a devastating earthquake a few years ago. The city is located in a district deprived of modern facilities, and the majority of the residents' income is acquired from the transit of products across the common border with Iraq and Turkey. Project developers in the area are faced with several challenges, one of which is the amount of projects needed to ameliorate the city's status.
Instead of designing two different projects on two separate sites, CAAT Studio proposed the Kamyaran City-School, a new concept which merges an elementary school and public space into one large facility that aims to improve the social and cultural life of its residents.
We believe good projects should be able to express and explain themselves. Architectural representation plays a fundamental role in how a project is perceived by the audience, which is why today ArchDaily is recognizing the most outstanding, original and self explanatory drawings of the year.
The selected drawings cover the diverse range of different techniques used in architectural representation today, from hand drawing images to perfectly detailed axonometrics and animated GIFs - but one thing they all have in common is the deep insights they provide into the appearance, construction or concept of the buildings they represent.
