by Pratyush Sarup. Images: Deed Studio, Parham Taghioff, courtesy of the architect.
Hooba Design Group’s innovative, double-layered brick tower, the Kohan Ceram Central Office Building, has won them the coveted Emerging Architect trophy at the RIBA Awards 2021
Asingle material, the humble, age-old brick has transformed what was once an old concrete shell alongside a busy expressway in Tehran, Iran, into glowing beacon for its neighbourhood. When the client, a brick manufacturer, invited Hooba Design Group to imagine the future of this structure, it offered the architects a rare opportunity to experiment with a centuries-old building material. Their creation, a brick with a statement-making void, and their masterful use of this innovative material in envisioning an office building that is high not only on environmental performance, but also adaptability, elegance and restraint has won them the Emerging Architect trophy at the RIBA Awards 2021.
Creating a double skin with these perforated bricks with some sections infilled to make solid, others filled out to insulate and some inserted with cylindrical glass blocks to filter in diffused light, the RIBA Award winning architects have fashioned a series of spaces and voids that deliver naturally ventilated environments. The building’s shutters follow the same design principals, creating a homogenous façade that transforms as day turns to evening and the glow of the interior lighting is perceptible from the outside.
In some sections of the building, the architects extended the façade into to the interior spaces, forming voids that bring in natural light and ventilation into the deep spaces. Air is filtered and cooled by the planting inserted into these gaps, positively addressing the dry and polluted climate of Tehran. With this project and their collaborative approach to innovation Hooba Design Group is a worthy recipient of the RIBA International Emerging Architect.
“The judges were impressed by how the practice’s Kohan Ceram Central Office Building successfully addresses a number of key criteria,” said Denise Bennetts, Chair of the RIBA awards group. “Working with an existing structure and collaborating with the client, Hooba Design Group developed an environmentally considered ‘spectacled brick’ building which stands out on a grey city corner.” hoobadesign.com; architecture.com
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