Shiva Najafi

This project was an ordinary apartment. It was a cube extruded from the ground. It had one view facing the street and one facing the yard. One unit per floor. Like all urban apartments, the windows of the units had a view of the neighbors in front. You know, maybe we could just leave it up to the residents of the building to solve the problem. to cover the windows with a curtain, because when we walk around the city, we see that in most apartments, the curtains are always closed.

But the question of the project was: Can this curtain be moved from inside to outside? Is it possible to put a shell layer on the facade?

For the shell, we first went to the usual ordinary materials. But we found that adding a second layer blocked the light quite a bit. The only solution is to use a translucent material. Finally, we came to the conclusion that the shell is made of plexiglass. The project was located in Gilan, where the art of mat weaving has been practiced for a long time. We also referred to this ancient art: we woven plexiglass. As in rural art, mats are woven. We made mats in both small and large scale.

We added a number of pots and plants among the facade of the building and the window. And by combining plants and talaqs woven in the form of wicker, we created a suitable landscape for the residents. We placed a balcony between Weaved acrylics, in order to enable residents to have an open view.

Finally, we designed the form of other parts of the building based on the mat weaving structure and in harmony with it.

On the ground floor, in order to have a lobby, we slightly changed the structure of the staircase. Considering the density of the city of Rasht and the low open space per capita, we decided to place a roof garden on the roof instead of using a sloping roof.