© Massimo valente . Pubblicata il 28 Giugno 2010.

The concept for the project is based on the typical features of the islamic architecture but although it wants also to symbolise the Benetton group communication style.

© Massimo valente . Pubblicata il 28 Giugno 2010.

The sense of privacy, the value of the wall, the courtyard and the introspective space are some of the elements that made our project.

© Massimo valente . Pubblicata il 28 Giugno 2010.

The volume is a big closed cubic suspended on a steel glass surface that at the ground floor is the shop display all around the boundary and the main entrance to the shops. The first floor, eccessible directly from the shops floor, comprise a pool hall at the entrance and a show room area. There is a double hight to the first office floor. From this floor the building is shaped with overlapping staggered drawers purpose-built to subtract area to the volume and, at the same time, maintain it’s cubic shape.

The shop window from the second floor comes behind the “skin” of the building. The “skin” appears as a curve shaped concrete surface on the Vali Asr ave side and as a steel iron frame on Salmak road side. The steel iron frame assumes the typical musharabiya pattern of the Islamic architecture.

The brick volume next to the existing building is the vertical private connection between the office floor and the apartments and englobes also bathroom, store, technical room and pantry. This volume create, together with the unhooked shaped curved surface, a wind tunnel to the upper floor like a wind tower sistem.

The contrast between glass and concrete is read in a different way. We want to remark the “contrast” as a key word in the Benetton group communication policy putting the window behind the wall. We want to express a different value to this surface, and like in the Islamic tradition, wants to be an “interior transparency”.

The last floor comprises four apartments, all of them characterized by large courtyard. The main entrance to the flats is hided by a slanting wall system. All the space is closed to itself.