Residential

Apadana | Urban Scale,Familiar Texture

The considerable size of Apadana became the starting point for its design. The challenge was to organize a substantial building within the urban fabric, maintaining a legible overall composition while creating an approachable experience at close range. The response operates at two scales: large frames establish order across the volume, while brickwork introduces detail, warmth, and a connection to Iran’s architectural memory.

Apadana is an 11,812-square-meter project on Hejazi Street in Tehran’s District 5. Designed in the Iranian calendar year 1404, it has not yet entered construction. Our team’s scope encompasses architectural design, spatial planning, façade design, and managing the building permit and approval process.

In response to the project’s scale, the façade is organized into frames that bring several floors together within a single composition. These frames arrange the repeated windows and balconies within a broader order, preventing the extensive elevations from fragmenting into disconnected elements. Their vertical emphasis, balanced by horizontal divisions, creates identifiable sections that retain their own proportions while contributing to a unified whole.

Brick is the principal element defining the façade’s identity. It was selected to evoke a familiar, distinctly Iranian character through material, texture, and shadow. Small brick units and large frames connect two different scales: from a distance, the building is perceived through its overall composition; up close, it is experienced through joints, texture, and surface detail.

Ceramic cladding, glass, and metal complete the material palette. Light-colored brick surfaces contrast with dark metal elements and glazed areas, establishing a balance between solid and open portions of the envelope. Recessed windows and balconies add depth, allowing changing daylight to shape the perception of the building throughout the day.

Balconies occupy the vertical recesses between the frames, expressing the presence of everyday life across the large elevations. Space for sitting, simple railings, and integrated planting areas bring these elements closer to the scale of the residents. Repeated greenery introduces softness alongside the brick texture, connecting architectural order with daily use.

At street level, a darker, more unified base defines the building’s contact with the city. Entrances, ground-floor openings, and planting are organized within this zone, giving pedestrians a composition with detail and proportions suited to close viewing. The proposed nighttime lighting emphasizes the depth of the frames and the rhythm of the balconies, preserving the design’s underlying order after dark.

Apadana seeks a balance between the scale of a large building and the scale of human experience. Its coherence comes from broad architectural divisions, while its sense of familiarity emerges through brick, shadow, and the presence of life within the layers of the façade.

Mahsa | A Rhythm of Openness

Mahsa Building is situated on Esfandani Street in Tehran, within a continuous residential streetscape where the narrow frontage and vertical proportions make composition particularly important. The design seeks to balance this verticality with the scale of everyday life on each floor, creating a coherent façade with clearly defined places for windows, balconies, and the presence of residents.

The 798-square-meter project was designed in the Iranian calendar year 1405 and is currently under construction. Our team’s scope includes architectural design, spatial planning, and façade design, with attention to the relationship between the interior spaces, openings, and the building’s presence along the street.

The façade combines two zones of different widths and expressions: a narrower band of dark stone surfaces and individual windows, alongside a more open section of balconies and expansive glazing. This contrast creates an asymmetrical balance, organizing the repeated floors into a legible composition. Light-colored frames connect groups of floors, while shifts in their arrangement introduce variation along the building’s height.

Recessed balconies give the façade depth and establish intermediate spaces between the interiors and the street. They provide opportunities to pause outdoors and incorporate planting alongside the living spaces. Shadows cast by the frames and balcony overhangs articulate the relationship between solid and open areas, allowing the façade’s appearance to shift with the daylight.

Stone, brick, and glass form the project’s principal material palette. Light-colored brickwork and its vertical articulation contrast with dark, veined stone, bringing warmth, solidity, and refinement to the composition. Glass maintains visual connections with the outdoors, while dark railings and window frames tie the details together. The façade’s identity emerges from the measured contrast between these materials and the proportions of their surfaces.

At street level, the pedestrian entrance and vehicle access sit within a unified light-colored frame. Vertical fins beside the entrance and an integrated planting area carry the rhythm of the upper floors down to the pedestrian scale, giving the arrival point a distinct identity. The proposed lighting emphasizes the frame edges and balcony recesses, revealing the façade’s underlying structure at night.

Mahsa transforms the repetition of floors into a balanced, expressive composition. Its character emerges through the relationship between frames and openings, light textures and dark surfaces, and architectural order and the everyday presence of its residents.

Mashahir | Between Openness and Privacy

The design of Mashahir Residential Building began with the client’s request to maximize the floor area of each apartment—a requirement that limited opportunities for substantial setbacks and voids within the building’s mass. Alongside this, the desire for large windows raised another question: how could the homes open up to daylight and outward views while maintaining privacy along the street?

Once the floor plans had been resolved and the required areas accommodated, the design focus shifted to the building envelope. The approach explored façade depth and varying degrees of openness as a means of mediating between the private realm of the home and the public realm of the city.

Brick was selected following site visits and an assessment of the surrounding context. Its capacity to form both solid surfaces and perforated screens allowed the envelope to accommodate different degrees of openness. Large north-facing windows were designed to admit indirect daylight and establish visual connections with the outside, while perforated brick screens were introduced in selected areas to filter direct views and provide a measure of privacy.

The alternating arrangement of solid brickwork, perforated screens, and window openings, together with shifts in depth and position across the floors, gives the façade rhythm and relief. Articulation of the building’s mass was thus pursued at the scale of the envelope, where subtle variations in depth lend the building a distinct identity while preserving the apartments’ floor area.

Mashahir seeks a balance between maximizing development capacity and enhancing the quality of living. Its brick envelope mediates the relationship between home and street through openness, depth, and privacy.