4 Individual Practices-Sepehr Asadi-2021

SEPEHR 2

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Academic

01/ School as a Place to Live Towards A New Pedagogy

04/ Spatial Assemblage II 15/ Dal Terminal Airport Revision

18/Spatial Assemblage I 25/ Blobdorm

Topological Envelope

Professional

37/ Hollow

Enter The Void

01/ TOWARDS A NEW PEDAGOGY

Year Location Type Instructor

2021/Bachelor Thesis Tehran, Iran Academic Kaveh Bazrafkan

This exercise aims to design a different school for existing students of Kianshahr neighborhood in Tehran, Iran. These students are boys and girls from two segregated schools close to the project location. The project is a critical exercise toward the existing schools of Iran. While conventional schools value the principles and equality in appearance and mindset of students, school as a place to live looks for a new experiment that denies these conventions. These conventions put differences in personalities and characters aside and treat every student the same way and reward and punish them based on the benchmarks.

These disputes call for architecture’s help.

Since architecture creates the environment and provides a canvas for relations between people to take place, in the design process, the question was how to create a new school that instead of giving a program or direction to students, encourage them to find their true selves. The answer was in the creation of fluidity through event spaces. With some modifications in architectural elements, the acts and methods have been changed and the focus changed from instructor to the students. At this crucial point, the columns have turned into spacious pockets to serve the concept of event space, and the hard and fixed parts of the program moved to the centerline of the project. This practice was an opportunity to measure architecture’s ability to change the conventions and habits by changing itself and moving toward new possibilities.

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Modern Panopticon

Improper Praise of Discipline & Control When you observe contemporary schools of Iran, it is obvious that some typical patterns have formed them and they resemble each other. This pattern reminds me of panopticon system; albeit, instead of a central tower, there is an intermediate dark hallway between classes that simplifies having control over students. Thus, this hallway acts as an observation point empowering one person to observe all classes from the end of this path. Moreover, the teacher-based classes generate an inner hierarchy in classrooms. One aim of this project was to reduce this hierarchy and control over bodies and minds of space users.

Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon diagram.

Photograph: The Guardian

Architecture Adaptations From Dom-ino to Sendai...

Perspective view of the Dom-ino system, 1914. Image from Le Corbusier & Pierre Jeanneret, OEuvre Complète Volume 1, 1910–1929, Les Editions d’Architecture Artemis, Zürich, 1964 - dezeen.com

Model of Sendai Mediateque, 1997-2000.

Toyo Ito & Associates.

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Le Corbusier designed the Dom-ino house as a response to post-war needs for fast reconstructions. This model clearly depicts the changes that architecture was facing in the 20th century.

Now more than 100 years have passed since those days and the Dom-ino structure is still the essence of nearly all buildings in Iran.

A century later, Toyo Ito in Sendai managed to take this diagram to the next level, Sendai’s spatial columns turned negative and solid architecture elements into positive transparent pockets. As a result, these columns gave his project a meaning and uniqueness and provided him a space to use as shafts.

I have studied this idea and used this aspect of Ito’s project to turn the columns of my project into event spaces.

Instead of hiding columns with other architectural elements, I have decided to manifest them and manipulate the space made among these columns.

Spatial Assemblage

Generative Method of Developing Concepts

Discipline

Individuality

Flourishing

A transition from forceful disciplinary to democracy will praise the beauty of individuality and result in personal flourishing.

Hence, the virtue of this architecture is its ability to provide a more democratic atmosphere.

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North Kianshahr

A Middle-Class Neighborhood with Acceptable Quality North Kianshahr is a neighborhood located in the 15th district of Tehran, founded in 1971 before the Iranian revolution. This neighborhood has acceptable urban planning even though it is among inexpensive neighborhoods of Tehran. Moreover, the open and green area in this neighborhood is adequately above Tehran’s average.

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There is an educational district in the center of the neighborhood, which consists of a few schools from elementary to high school and one university. Project’s location is in this educational district and among two segregated elementary schools, one for boys and the other for girls.

Providing a possibility to design a new school for these existing students.

LANDSCAPE

10%

CONSTRUCTION

MAX

30% 3 FLOORS

100%

Kianshahr 91%

Tehran

Tehran 95%

LANDSCAPE

>70%

10%

Kianshahr

The idea is to create a unified new school for existing students of these two schools. Additionally, the landscape of two existing schools will be redesigned and added to the open field of the educational complex.

Literacy

Over 65 5% Under 15 22%

Income

Other 73%

266 Kianshahr 530 7-13 YO

Age

180

141 Tehran 293

7-13 YO

Blue-Collar 59% Scientific 6% Population Density Profession

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The segregation of boys and girls in Iran schools has been harmful to society. Thus, another possibility of this project was the ability to gather boys and girls in one school and experiment these changes.

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A mixture of transparent and translucent glass with yellow glass & yellow solid panels have formed the facade and created various light effects inside.

Third floor has most classrooms and laboratories.

Auditorium for 145 persons

Mezzanine with direct access from second floor. Containing physical education spaces & event spaces.

Second floor with public concentration. Mainly for dining and loud gatherings, including main book storage.

First floor with a balance between event spaces and flexible ateliers.

Landscape containing sport activities, entrance and gallery of school.

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Ground Floor

Gallery

Entrance

Grid's First Position

Flooring Patterns

Plan Guides

First Floor

Public Areas

Private Cores

Second Floor

Focus Areas

Services

Column Movements

Basis

Double Height

Grid's Displacement

Circulation Space

Shafts

Mezzanine

Physical Activity

Void

Spatial Columns

Third Floor

Event Spaces

Individual Learning

Fixed Program

Flexible Classrooms

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Ground Floor

1st Floor

2nd Floor

2nd Floor Mezzanine

3rd Floor

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1:500

0

5

10M

A U D I T O R I U M

Physical Model 1:250

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21.00

16.80

13.95

10.50

6.30

Section 1:250

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School as a place to live has a lot of event spaces instead of regular classrooms. Therefore, the main concentration is on the students’ creativity and not the tutors’ perceptions. These flexible spaces change with the demand and instead of dictating the acts and programs, give students a lot of options for personal and innovative learning practices. In this approach, the space consumers use and control the space as they want; while in the conventional schools of this region, the architecture controls students and manipulates their actions.

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These productive event spaces have been furnished with various furniture in case to satisfy different types of student personalities. On the other hand, the solid parts of the columns divide the space into a gradient-like variety of spaces.

This gradient creates a range of spaces from open to semi-open ones and gives diversity to the options of the users.

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02/ AIRPORT REVISION

Tehran International Airport Year 2019/Architectural Design IV Location Tehran, Iran Type Academic Instructor Kaveh Bazrafkan This practice is a redesign for Tehran’s international airport called IKCA. Although Tehran’s airport is not a popular place for international connecting flights due to political and economic complexities, but it cannot provide adequate service to the current small proportion of users either. The other problem is that it has not been redesigned for nearly twenty years and delivers a bad first impression. Therefore, Dal terminal is a refined alternative and replacement for the existing airport that can give service to 20million yearly travelers.

When I faced this project, as an architecture student, it was challenging to find an approach to such an enormous project. Like before, first approaches were the formal ones. However, it became obvious soon that there is no spatial sense over the form of such a largescale project. This understanding about scale of the projects came from my observations of foreign airports through a personal trip in the mid-term. The answer was in paths and not the form of the airport.

When we, as space consumers, use the space in largescale projects, it is our physical movements that become the main concern.

The shape and mass can be observed only in bird-view photos or renders, and we can never engage with airports in the way that we observe their pictures. Hence, the problem changed to what architecture can do to create a rational and simplistic path that takes passengers from point A to point B in the quickest time.

Scale

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TEHRAN

AIRPORT

Imam Khomeini International Airport Dal Terminal

Towed Glider Flight 1853

1804 Cayley Glider Model Hang 1914 Hounslow Heath Aerodrome

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First Use of Mehrabad 1938

1884

The Wright Brothers 1895

First Atlantic Crossing

Fully Controlable Flight 1955 Mehrabad International Airport

1919

2007 Imam Khomeini International Airport

2019 Dal Terminal

Spatial Assemblage Physical Model of First Notions

When architecture comes to designing largescale projects, the form becomes less important, and the main concentration will become the orders and movements in the designated space.

This is like what happens in the travels of airplanes between airports. Airports look like those red pins on a city map, they are some points in intersection of lines; these points connect people from different worlds and become a temporary home for people in a hurry...

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Window Frames Sky Lights Columns

Exploded Diagram Jetway

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Physical Model 1:500

This specific model is made out of laser-cut MDF pieces stuck together with mechanical methods using threaded rods and bolts, therefore; it generates random effects in movement. When you put all the four parts together, the final shape of the airport will become visible.

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Transition of Concrete Columns Into Metal V Shaped Columns

Rooftop

Facade

Arrivals

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Top Ground Floor Plan Bottom First Floor Plan 1:10000

First Floor Plan 1:500 Departures

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03/ TOPOLOGICAL ENVELOPE

Year 2018/Architectural Design II Location Tehran, Iran Type Academic Instructor Naghme Hemmatian This project is a dormitory designed for boys of my bachelor university, IAUCTB. Located in an empty land on the corner of the university’s faculty of architecture and urban design.

The given program was to provide rooms and services for 100 students of this faculty. On the other hand, this project explores experimental architectural forms while answering the given program and prescribed needs of the university. The final result remains critical toward architecture and examines new forms of living through new spatial arrangements and formations.

This project changed my vision in architecture, it broke the ice between me and form.

In architecture schools of my hometown, form and aesthetics have taken a bad connotation; and in most cases, employing them as an approach is considered an act of sabotage to the discipline. However, from my viewpoint, creating an absolutely formless shape does not seem possible and form is actually a crucial part of the architecture that can be used for good or bad. Modern architects once theorized taking the form out of architecture, but the end result was new minimal forms instead. Through these disputes and dialectics, I understood that form is an inseparable aspect of architecture and every intention to take it out from architecture is only possible in linguistic practices.

In this specific project, I found a possibility to try new forms and move from Euclidean geometry to the topological one. Subsequently, not only was the form not taboo anymore; but also, was an option in service of the artist.

Scale

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Site Restrictions

Combined With an Intention The lush vegetation of the unspoiled site has created a green area in the unwooded environment of the Punak neighborhood. Fortunately, there are some empty spaces to put the mass on; however, the trees on the site restrict the mass boundaries.

Nevertheless, this restriction has empowered a possibility to create an unusual and unconventional shape. The building is shaped around these trees and maneuvered between their presence. This co-existence helped to deliberately pursue the practice of experimental forms. In the subsequent stages of design, instead of a simple extrusion, the final form has taken the same geometry, a new form with no angles in neither direction. Surrounded by an algorithmic shell with diverse cut patterns, providing different effects inside the building.

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The structure has been lifted up from the ground in central parts to provide more open space in this vegetated landscape. This approach creates a semi-open space under the building for events and gatherings of the students. It is actually a vacant neutral platform for various symposiums.

Physical Model 1:300

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For Four 40-55 m2 Total Number: 15

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Double Room

Single Room

20-25 m2 Total Number: 15

15-20 m2 Total Number: 10

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First Floor Plan 1:500

Alongside three different types of rooms, half of the building is dedicated to public spaces. There is a small auditorium under the ground. Ground floor is dedicated to public and administrative spaces. First and second floors are generally filled with rooms and some public spaces like the ateliers, cafe, and balconies.

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Ground Floor Plan 1:500

Second Floor Plan 1:500

Basement Plan 1:2000

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Section 1:200

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04/ ENTER THE VOID

Year 2021 Location Damavand, Iran Type Professional In Collaboration Behine Tarh This is one of my freelance projects in collaboration with Behine Tarh Consulting Engineers. I worked on this project as the architect while Behine Tarh was in charge of structural and mechanical design. As a leisure house, this project needed to respond to the needs of the client’s family. Their specific needs were simple: a good view to the valley on the east, adequate landscape area, 2 parking, 3 bedrooms, and a private outdoor swimming pool with no view from adjacent villas.

At the end of the day, this client’s passion for architecture provided me with a chance to practice new experiments in architecture.

In the first act of design, choosing an appropriate approach is crucial. Usually, clients in Iran like to use every inch of a building and hate to leave even one meter of habitable space unused. However, when I was sketching the first ideas and thinking about this project, I was wondering what turns a building into a house. I recalled that when I was a kid, what I was enthusiastic about in houses was not the dense parts of the program, but the empty parts where you could pause for a moment; like a spacious landing of a stair or a void; an analogy of when we look at the empty sky and wonder. More or less similarly, these voids were non-being that stimulated thought – such a contradiction. Therefore, I emptied different vertical and horizontal voids inside and outside of a shapeless cube, in order to generate negative spaces that acted as the heart of the house.

Scale

S

First Floor Axonometric 1:150

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Second Floor Axonometric 1:150

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Site Plan 1:200

With a pleasant valley on the west and mountains in the east, the location of the project is pure and a bit far from civilization. Except for some regular houses in the valley and the other three houses which are going to be constructed next door, there is nothing but pure rural landscapes. Despite the disadvantages of the eastern sunlight, the building, landscape, and the pool are all oriented toward the valley. Besides, the fireplace is placed at the end of the site as an observation point. With a fairly small land area and a demand for a private pool, I lifted the building up and, to some extent, emptied the ground level to hide half of the pool behind the wall also to surround it by the building for more privacy.

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Centered Kitchen

Narratives of Architecture

New Forms of Living

Concrete Structure

One of the basic ingredients that define architecture for me is its possibilities in creating new forms of living. New forms can be achieved by exploring a new approach in designing a bedroom or imagining a new program for a staircase. Or specifically, it can be seen in Fujimoto’s Itabu toilet. It changes the rules of the game and proposes new alternatives. I think these changes can define what is architecture and what is outside its boundaries. In my project, the kitchen represents the whole house; it is like a fraction of a bigger fractal. Through this alteration, instead of being surrounded by the kitchen, users can turn around the kitchen and experience a new relation. This change can be positive, negative, or neutral; however, I guess it is worth the examination.

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Emptied Surface

Clearing half of the ground floor area to provide more landscape

Negative and Positive

Subtracting voids and adding masses to add to the space's diversity

Extruding Skylight

Providing more light and atmosphere to the double height living room beneath

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Modified Boundaries

Setting back ground floor walls to increase contrast between levels

Openings and Decks

Generating openings to let light in and decks to observe surroundings

Adding Details

As always it is the details that transform an idea to a building

Digital Model

The house is a cube, simultaneously modernistic and not modern, as it has unintentional roots in the works of the New York Five, but it is not loyal to their rules. Furthermore, it is defined by these vertical and horizontal voids; which are the only parts of the house that bring light and view to the building. As Rem Koolhaas has apprised before in the Very Big Library project, voids can contain value and are able to become the most important part of a building. Presumably as a tribute to this extraordinary view, in this villa, voids are the eyes of the house and give value to it. As a result, instead of the solid parts, it is the carved out and unusable part of the house that matters most. The project is about the beauty of uselessness.

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Aluminum Window frame Tempered Glass Railing Aluminum Finishing Base Plate

2cm Bush Hammered Granite Stone 3cm Cement Mortar 1cm Water Proof Insulation 5cm Foam Concrete 10cm Pumice for Slope 15cm Concrete Slab Concrete Beam Metal Gutter

Knauf Structure T Shaped Galvanized Profile Knauf Panels White Paint Multiple Units Steel Lintel Aluminum Profile Double Glazed Window Gypsum Wall Boards 10cm Brick Wall 5mm Batt Insulation Cement with Fibers Soft Cement for Finish Grey Paint

Wall Section 1:40

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