An echo of the past, shaped in brick for the life of today.
Location: Aboozar Boulevard, Mashhad, Iran
Status: Completed, 2022
Architect: Amin Jafari
Omid Rahmani
Site Area: 280 sqm
Gross Floor Area: 1,550 sqm
The project began with a client’s deep interest in Iran’s historic architecture. Its setting offered a fitting place to explore that interest: this part of the city has long welcomed new buildings that respond to their time while drawing on forms and materials from the past. We approached the design as a conversation between those two impulses, shaped by the client’s vision and the character of the neighbourhood.
One side of the building presented an opportunity. Though it could have been left as a plain wall, it was clearly visible to neighbouring homes. We considered how the building would appear from their windows, as well as how its residents would see out. A diagonal movement rises from the entrance toward the roofline, drawing the side elevation into the composition and giving depth to what might otherwise have been read as a flat façade.
The balconies and terraces are central to the building’s form. As the floor plans change, these semi-open spaces change with them, creating a sequence of distinct openings across the façade. They offer places between indoors and outdoors where light, privacy, and daily life can be carefully balanced. Together, the terraces, brickwork, and sweeping lines give the building a contemporary presence with a sense of continuity across time.
Brick carries much of this expression. Its individual units, varied bonds, and moments of solid and void create texture and filtered light. Curved and arched forms give the material a familiar resonance without reproducing a historic style. Wood and warm tones extend that atmosphere, while the materials retain their own character.
Every project holds a story and the memory of the people behind it. This photograph, taken at the café across from the Three Arcs Project where we often met, is a tribute to the team and to my dear friend Omid Rahmani. As both a design collaborator and one of the project’s investors, Omid helped shape our approach: drawing on the past while giving it a contemporary voice.
