Teheran, Iran

designing in teheran_A

rolled carpet

Giuditta Benedetti, Sara Gatto, Michele Filosa

The patio The building, initially imagined as a completely full volume, is excavated, nearly eroded, by the green, that models and carves it, defining its finally configuration. It produces a complex hanging garden system, typical of Iranian tradition, that rotates around a great central patio, symbolic and functional fulcrum of Islamic house. The patio becomes an element able to catalyze the fluxes that run along Teheran streets, creating a moment of pause, a public space strongly defined, a piazza dedicated to the inhabitants of the building, to the people that work in it. All the while it is conceived also for those who walk only to go window-shopping or want to find a protected and pleasant place to become estranged, for few minutes, from metropolitan chaos. Inside the building there are many courtyards, one wider and lower and the others more narrow and deep, creating a fresh draught, through intermediate rooms, in hottest and torrid days. The courtyards in middle east architecture have been used since medieval time as an useful way to cool buildings. When the climate is particularly dry, Arab and Persian architecture often recourses to fountains or water canals that flow in the patios and in pensile gardens. The courtyard behaves as a ventilating shaft that collects fresh air during the night and keeps it until the sun is high. The patio, in this design, is thought as an internal space of the building, a piazza where commercial units and office spaces look at. This public space is provided with visual and acoustic isolation from noise and city traffic of the street. It is an introverted space characterized by the presence of green, water and a big circular sittings enclosing skylights that bring light and air in an underground parking.

The carpet As requested in the competition brief, the Benetton building has been thought with a clear functional division between different levels: commercial units, office space and apartments. This approach has determined the will to treat the building envelope in different ways, as it is evident the presence of a complex functional mix. For this reason it has been chosen to subdivide the building in three parts: a basement, a shaft and an entablature. The basement takes two commercial levels. It is characterized by big shop windows of three duplex commercial units. The shaft is formed by five office levels. Outside, it is wrapped by a coloured carpet decorated with Persian traditional ornamental subjects. The carpet, in its history, is born as a mat, needing to warm up, protect, wrap dead men and to contain objects and utensils during transits. The carpet we conceive in our project is used to absolve some of this functions becoming a way to protect office from light and from temperature range. It is a simple system to guarantee natural ventilation as well as temperature control and light regulation inside the office room. The carpet is composed by a double glass skin, containing a system of horizontal aluminium brise soleil that guarantees light control. The space between the two glasses can be opened or closed according to the season, in order to produce air circulation in summer and heating in winter. The panels are differently coloured according to the characteristic style that defines Benetton stores all over the world. Finally, the entablature of the building takes a residential level. The houses are all introverted, with one or more patios to receive light and air.

Europaconcorsi Beta

designing in teheran_A