Project: Cheshm Cheran
Architects: ZAV Architects
Location: Minudasht, Iran
Area: 3,207 sf
Photographs by: Parham Taghioff, Soroosh Majidi, Deed Studio
Cheshm Cheran by ZAV Architects
Nestled on the rolling hills of Minudasht in Iran, Cheshm Cheran is a project by ZAV Architects that beautifully merges nature and architecture. The site’s vastness and stunning views were the driving forces behind the design of this 3,207 sf house. Instead of putting an architectural volume on the land, the architects chose to preserve and enhance its natural character while creating an inhabitable space.
The site is vast. It is located down the Minoodasht hills and has a moderate downward slope. The design of the project is very much informed by simple questions: Is it possible to preserve and enhance the site’s natural character, while appropriating it as an inhabitable locale? Can we ignore the temptation of putting an architectural volume on this fascinating field and instead, focus on capturing its stunning views?
The architectural volume is placed on a forgotten patch of land next to the rainwater reservoir and its positioning enables it to benefit from a panoramic view of the project’s greater context. To secure maximum connection with nature, the conventional circulation and spatial diagram for rural and sub-urban constructions is challenged.
Circulation and social spaces of the house are combined and misplaced to be situated around the habitation units as an elevated open space called “the Platform or Joy Lounge”, which was the result of our endeavor to impose the minimum intervention on the farm land that appears as a duplicated and elevated piece of land. As such, each and every environmentally conditioned spatial pocket, or the habitation units, is endowed with independent access and view. Underneath, a continuous landscape is in full operation.
The constructed landscape of the site, follows the natural contours and the initial geo-morphology of the land. As such, the landscape is a continuation of the farm and the hills, while the architecture, the elevated platform, operates as a viewing apparatus both for the natural and the constructed landscapes.
