Bronze Architecture, Building and Structure Design · 2024
Anahita Factory Mix Use Building
by Shahram Shir
- A' Design Award 2024 Bronze Winner in Architecture, Building and Structure Design
- Awarded April 15, 2024
- CLIENT: SHahrASHir
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 12,833
- Verification code 4FE3BD728F · Verify this award
About Anahita Factory Mix Use Building
Anahita Factory is a mixed-use building located in an industrial town in Tehran, Iran. The building covers 2500 square meters on three floors. The ground floor holds rest areas for workers, the first floor holds offices, and the second floor holds management rooms, accommodation, a hotel and a swimming pool. A central courtyard with green space and water joins all users, while each function has a separate entrance. The form follows lines drawn from the brand and from traditional Persian architecture. Concrete was used for the roofs and the outer shell.
Shahram Shir's Anahita Factory Mix Use Building exemplifies contemporary architecture's capacity to transform utilitarian industrial typology into sculptural urban landmarks through rigorous geometric articulation and chromatic discipline. The project engages with a lineage of late modernist industrial architecture that sought to elevate functional building programs beyond mere pragmatic enclosure, participating in conversations initiated by High-Tech architecture's celebration of technical systems and continued through parametric design's exploration of complex geometric assembly. The central facade's prismatic white composition demonstrates remarkable formal sophistication, deploying a modular system of angular panels that create dynamic visual rhythm while maintaining structural logic, each faceted plane catching natural illumination differently to generate continuously variable atmospheric effects throughout the diurnal cycle. The chromatic strategy proves equally considered, restricting the palette to a near-triadic harmony of cerulean blue industrial volumes, pristine white sculptural intervention, and warm ochre landscape elements, creating both unity and hierarchy while avoiding chromatic excess. The white central mass functions as both literal and metaphorical core, its faceted geometry suggesting crystalline growth, folded origami precision, or parametric surface subdivision, achieving a synthesis of organic formal suggestion and geometric rigor that rewards extended contemplation. The flanking cobalt structures provide essential compositional anchoring, their orthogonal stability and horizontal fenestration rhythms creating measured counterpoint to the central sculptural exuberance, demonstrating sophisticated understanding of visual balance and tension resolution. Technical execution appears masterful throughout, with crisp edge definition, precise geometric alignment, and seamless material transitions suggesting either advanced digital fabrication or meticulous traditional construction under exacting quality standards. The integration of landscape architecture proves equally thoughtful, with earth-toned retaining walls and carefully positioned coniferous plantings softening the architectural geometry while reinforcing the building's ground plane integration and providing human-scale mediation between viewer and monumental structure. The work suggests awareness of diverse architectural precedents: the industrial shed typology's honest expression of functional program, the sculptural minimalism of 1960s geometric abstraction, parametric design's computational form-generation methodologies, and perhaps even vernacular responses to challenging climatic conditions through shading, solar orientation, and thermal mass consideration. The angular white panels might reference traditional industrial sawtooth roof profiles optimized for north-facing clerestory illumination while transforming that utilitarian solution into expressive vertical facade articulation. The building's dramatic presence within its landscape context, commanding its site while remaining grounded through careful horizontal emphasis and landscape integration, demonstrates sophisticated urban design sensibility and awareness of architectural presence as civic contribution. Might this work invite contemplation of how industrial and commercial building typologies, often resigned to purely pragmatic expression, can aspire to architectural significance through geometric invention, chromatic restraint, and formal discipline, thereby elevating everyday built environments and enriching the urban fabric with unexpected moments of sculptural delight and spatial sophistication?
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- AnAhitA mixed-use project, located in the area of a factory in an industrial town, was designed and built to respond to the employer needs of various spaces such as: labor, staff, accommodation, sports and management, on three floors and 2500 square meters. As seen in the context, this project is the beginning of a revolution in the change in the type of constructions and the entry of architectural art into this sector and architectural branding, which was completely forgotten by its creators.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Anahita mixed-use project, with 2500 square meters of infrastructure on 3 floors, includes various uses from workers and employees to managers. 750 square meters were considered for workers' rest space on the ground floor. 750 square meters on the first floor were allocated for office and 1500 square meters on the second floor were considered for management room, hotel, swimming pool and accommodation. 750 square meters on the ground and first floors were considered as a middle yard and green space.
- Tags
- AnAhitA factory office, SHahrASHir, SHahramSHir,
- Production Technology
- When this project was proposed to us, its metal frame was already built. One of our important ideas was to empty a large volume from the inside and make it available as a central courtyard and green space. (semi-open space) Using one material in the construction of roofs and building shell was our most important choice in construction technology. Considering the conditions and situation of the project and its manufacturer, we tried to provide the simplest proposal in construction technology. Everything was made of concrete.
- Design Challenge
- The most important challenge in the field of design of this project was the implementation of a part of the project (metal frame) by the previous owner and social views for architecture without aesthetic values in the context of the project. The previous metal frame was made without any correct plan and it was challenging to place ideas inside it.
- Project Duration
- The stalled Anahita project was offered to us after its change of ownership by the new owner in June 2021. This project is located in an industrial town in the capital of Iran, Tehran, which lacks any value in terms of architectural art. After making fundamental changes in the initial plans and completing the design, its construction continued in August 2021 and its construction was completed in August 2023.
- Operation Flow
- The building has a common point for all its users, the central courtyard. This yard is the point of interaction between workers, employees and management. Entrance to all uses in this building are separate and all spaces are completely independent from each other. The primary purpose of the building is to welcome visitors with a tall entrance in the center of the building and transport the user through a pleasant green and water space. The second floor has the least visual aristocracy for the comfort of users in sports and residential spaces.
- Research
- In order to achieve the first layer of concepts in architectural design branding, a library research was conducted by the design team, and the result of this research was the expression of the concept of special brand value in the field of design. Brand equity is one of the concepts that differentiate between brands and factors such as perceived quality, perceived value of the brand based on cost, uniqueness, willingness to pay a higher amount, awareness of the brand name, familiarity with the brand, Brand popularity, organizational links and brand image stability are the dimensions of brand equity. This research has examined the relationship between brand equity and architectural art and has led to the emergence of architectural design patterns in line with increasing brand equity and the research result indicates a positive and meaningful relationship between architectural art and increasing brand equity.
- Inspiration
- To reach the final design of this project, there were four paths of inspiration for us: Inspiration from traditional Iranian architecture and inspiration from the brand(AnAhitA)and context In the first layer, we found the lines of the brand (AnAhitA) and displayed it in all parts of the building. The second layer was inspired by 5-doors, 3-doors, Goushvar, Mianvar and the sky line taken from Persian architecture. And the third layer of inspiration from the context (Triangular lines of truss structures). And the fourth layer Combining the previous layers to achieve a single and coherent idea.
- Image Credits
- photographers: Mohammad Amini, Khatereh Eshqi.
Colors of Anahita Factory Mix Use Building
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