Habibeh Madjdabadi Architecture Studio

A residential apartment on the southern coast of the Caspian Sea inspired by local traditional houses

This project is under Construction on the location of an old villa. The idea of the project is to preserve the memory of the traditional houses of North of Iran. The project site is a small rectangular plot measured 500 m2. located on the southern coastline of Caspian Sea. There is a narrow green strip of land (long 800 km and large 15 to 65 km), confined by the sea to the North and the green mountains to the South. Iranians call it Shomal (the north) in short. Shomal is just a green spot in the hot and arid Iranian plateau. Many people from the capital and the major cities of Iran have a summer residence in this area. While in Shomal, houses are normally arranged in rows, in this project the residential units are arranged in column. Here major elevation improves the view over the sea and the shilling fields. Each duplex apartment is formally conceived such as an autonomous villa with slopping roof. The building has 12 floors on the ground and it consists of 10 duplexes and 10 flats in different types.

In this context (Shomal) houses, face the surrounding green Despite traditional houses in the central regions of Iran. Because of environmental and cultural conditions, the Iranian inland traditional houses are introverted. The construction and the main facades face the inner courtyards, embellished with trees, plants, flower, and water pounds. In the Caspian Sea inshore area, the dominant housing typology consists of one-two floor villas, including sheltered terraces and slopping roof, covered with terracotta tiles and they are all facing the surrounding green. In order to protect the construction against humidity, both traditional wooden houses and the new masonry ones, are erected on top of pilotis(or pillars). In the recent years, due to scarcity of lands suitable for construction, the developers switched to apartment condominiums.