“The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”_Michelangelo
The building we encountered at the beginning of the work was nothing more than a mess. a lifeless and dirty body that had been in a coma for years. It was once a home and today it is homeless. A threat in Iranshahr Avenue that could have had a better fate. It could not support its own weight and was about to break down. with all of these, it had a soul. A rusted soul in a cage, a relic of the past days with hammered arches that wanted to live again. We decided to remove the dust of time from it, revive its spirit once again, and bring it to life.
In search of finding a way to revive it, we found its beating heart and wanted to prepare it for today’s life by preserving its identity. We removed some of the internal walls and strengthened its skeleton with exposed metal structures; We exposed the ceilings and restored the bricks in the project so that they could continue to live in the complex. The external walls in the southern facade could not stand; We also reinforced them by shotcreting. We revived the bricks that were sentenced to death and created a handrail out of them. The basement also had to return to the cycle of life. For this purpose, we excavated and created a void so that more sunlight and a better view of the yard become available. In this way, a new space that sewed the inside and the outside together emerged from the ground and gave sunlight and soul to the dark heart of the basement.
The sculptural staircase of the courtyard connects the basement, courtyard, and the first floor directly so that dining spaces are now connected. Since the existence of every creature is connected to water and the presence of water brings joy for the guests, we injected the essence of life into the complex to help it revive by the water flow. The sound of water also helps the building live.
The building had to adapt itself to its new life so that the lower two floors were transformed into a cafe restaurant and a space for the new generation to spend time. That dead body became alive and was ready to serve the new generation. The industrial kitchen was also placed in the basement and was ready to serve the upper floors. To create visual diversity, we added some colors and tried to have a significant physical and visual connection with the open space and the yard. The building must survive and maintain; Therefore, on the upper floors, we considered a flexible space for gatherings and events so that a new story can be told every day; Dynamic and living narratives; and non-repetitive sequences of life.
