“House of the Sun” shines at Italy’s A’ Design competition

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Date: 18 April 2017

Iranian architects Nima and Sina Keivani won a silver award for their joint design “House of the Sun” at the A’ Design Award and Competition in the Italian city of Milan, the organizers announced Saturday 15 April 2017.

The design, which has been implemented in a building in Kiev, was honored in the Interior Space and Exhibition Design category. Nima and Sina along with designers, architects, artists and design oriented companies from around the world will be honored during a special ceremony on 9 June 2017.

The two Iranian architects started their project in May 2015 in collaboration with the Studio Persian Primavera in Kiev, Ukraine and finished construction in June 2016.

The A’ Design Award and Competition, in describing “House of the Sun”, explained that “one of the most important design ideas is the set of stairs located in the living room.”

“It is a symbolic, yet philosophical element. This element is inspired from historic mehrabs and ziggurats, which are symbols of promotion and approaching closer to the sun. The sun is the symbol of light, and light is the symbol of knowledge and wisdom.”

Award-winning designs will be showcased in an exhibition, which will open at MOOD — the Museum of Outstanding Design — on 6 June 2017.

Source: Tehran Times

Approval of the national document on Iranian-Islamic architecture & urban develo

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Date: 28 January 2017

The Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution has approved a draft of the national document on the Iranian-Islamic architecture and urban development on Tuesday 26 January 2017.

The document, which contains policies regulating and governing urban planning particularly in metropolises, was approved by the council chaired by President Hassan Rouhani with representatives from the Ministry of Transport and Urban Development and the Supreme Council for Architecture and Urban Development in attendance.

Responsible bodies are required to report on their annual progress regarding the law to the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution; additionally the state TV and the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance have to strive to promote the Iranian-Islamic architecture among the public by the TV programs they make.

Implementing architectural features of Iranian and Islamic urban planning, promoting interaction between cultural centers, houses, schools and mosques, setting up research hubs and boosting technical and scientific knowledge in this field, reconsidering and reforming the educational system regarding architectural studies with regard to the Iranian-Islamic architecture, conservation and restoration of monuments and relics, management and improvement of cities’ physical environment, and raising public awareness about the significance of Iranian-Islamic architecture are some of the laws approved in the aforementioned document.

Source: Tehran Times

Willy Muller to discuss new urban paradigms in Tehran

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Date: 22 January 2017

The Barcelona-based renowned Argentine architect Willy Muller is scheduled to deliver a lecture about urban paradigms in Tehran on 3 February 2017.

The lecture program titled “Urban Paradigms: Towards the Extreme Urbanism?” has been organized by the Contemporary Architects Association of Iran.

“During the first decade of the XXI century we have witnessed one of the most singular demographic events of the last centuries: for the first time in history there are more people inhabiting urban environments than the rural ones,” he wrote in the preface to his speech.

As a consequence, on the one side the exponential growth of many metropolitan populations is reaching levels of unprecedented social complexity, and on the other side the geographical environment in which societies are settled is ever more compromised, insecure and threatened,” he added.

He pointed out to Lagos, Manila, Rio de Janeiro, Hong Kong, Mumbai and Tokyo as cities that are starting to manage an unknown type of urban complexity and added, “We are facing limit situations of obsolescence and change of paradigms, where the classical models of success will not be sufficiently useful.”

Muller is the founder of the Willy Muller Architects, a Barcelona-based office dedicated to architecture and urbanism design. The office has been awarded with a series of international prizes for its works and architectural competitions.

It also has representative offices in Rio de Janeiro, Hong Kong, Saint Petersburg and several other cities.

Source: Tehran Times

Iran Architect Receives 2016 Inspireli Award

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Date: 3 January 2017

Inspireli Awards, the premier global contest for aspiring architects and designers, has announced the winners of its sixth edition.

The International Union of Architects (UIA), the organizers of the competition, announced competitors from Italy, Japan and Iran as winners of the top three places in its 2016 edition. The competition is one of the most successful talent contests for young and budding architects and designers in the world, says its website uia-architects.org.

The third place was shared by Somayeh Ravanshad, PhD in Architecture from Tehran Azad University, Iran, and Magdalena Trobinger from Italy.

Ravanshad designed ‘Azarbaijan Square,’ the “largest square in the Middle East.” Her design reflects the mountainous structure of Iran’s Azarbaijan region, in particular Tabriz, capital of East Azarbaijan Province. The concept is conveyed with numerous vertical elements rhythmically arranged across the square.

Trobinger is a graduate of University of Innsbruck, Faculty of Architecture in Austria, and presented a deconstructionist design of a building.
The contest was attended by 1,052 competitors from more than 300 universities in 99 countries.

Participants submitted over 2,900 photo designs online and received 25,626 votes in all, and 50 competitors from 37 universities in 25 countries were chosen in the final round.

Jury of 55 Architects
The three winners were selected by a jury of 55 top architects from 6 continents. A competitor from France won the highest public vote.
Giacomo Garziano from University of Florence in Italy bagged the first place with 33 votes. He is the founder of GG-loop, an architecture office, established in 2014 in Amsterdam. His winning project ‘Altamura IT,’ is a visionary refurbishment by GG-loop which turned an old house in Altamura, southern Italy, into a place for the arts, multisensory events and exhibitions.

Daiki Watanabe from Musashino Art University (MAU) in Japan won the second place with 28 votes for his designs of a station, a department and a museum.
Said Belmir, graduate of Faculte d’Architecture La Cambra Horta in Belgium, who has participated in the competition as a French competitor, was announced the winner of the highest number of public votes. His winning design was a showroom, showing the interior and façade of a store belonging to Annemie Verbeke, a famous fashion brand in Belgium.

The UIA is a non-governmental organization, a global federation of national associations of architects that are its members. From the 27 delegations present at its founding assembly in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1948, the UIA has grown to encompass key professional organizations of architects in 124 countries and now represents close to 1.3 million architects worldwide.

Source: Financial Tribune