BW7 is a 9 story apartment building in Kamranieh, a well-off residential area in the north of Tehran. It faces the same challenges in its design as any typical residential building in the area but the building itself differs from them in many respects.
The codes and regulations regarding this type of buildings tend to organize space in an identical way even in different circumstances, generally producing a homogeneous urban residential fabric. On the other hand, urban residential architecture being accessible to all is treated as a prosaic and banal mass-produced product where innovation does not play a role. Additionally, the high value of land and building costs imposes additional constraints on the design process.
These key factors push back spatial qualities into an almost invisible background. The challenge is to transcend the external factors and extract architectural concerns from the same elements that tend to eradicate them.
The building, following urban infill regulations, occupies 40 percent of the plot, but its footprint takes a different shape that allows it to be freed from its infill profile. It is surrounded by voids on 3 sides and even its basement floors have access to open air, transforming the ex
The shape and spatial organization of the building stem from its users’ needs. The building is divided into two parts, an upper part comprising 3 residential units for the owner and his family members and a shared floor for their common uses (parties, gatherings, guests, etc.) and a lower part containing 5 residential units for sale to unspecific users. The division is visible physically in form of a black wooden box (upper part) stacked on top a white stone box (lower part) separated by a gap which is the shared party floor. The other shared spaces and facilities are distributed on top of the black box on the rooftop and below the white box on the ground floor and the basements.
Aesthetically, any element that is not deemed necessary is removed. Space is celebrated by keeping it in its pure and minimal form. This is done in order to prevent the hiding of architecture and its constituent element which is space behind other external elements and bring it to the foreground.
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