Arsh Design Studio

Profile of Arsh Design Studio, headquartered in Iran. Seven projects submitted by Arsh Design Studio have been published on Architecture News Plus (ANP).

: [L-R] Rambod R. Eilkhani, Pantea Eslami, Alireza Sherafati and Nashid Nabian – © Arsh Design Studio

Principals

Rambod R. Eilkhani
Pantea Eslami
Nashid Nabian
Alireza Sherafati

Brief description

Established in 2001, Arsh Design Studio have been dedicated to both scholarly research and innovative practice when it comes to are areas related to production of space. Our work addresses very complex socio-cultural landscape of Iran particularly in the context of city of Tehran. Our main concern is to re-evaluate mainstream Iranian building typologies, pushing the envelope to the extreme when dealing with zoning by laws and the logic of operation that is exacted by real estate market dynamics that have historically limited the level of intervention for Iranian architects.

City of Tehran among many other Iranian cities, is an absurd constructed landscape. Urban density is achieved through massive deployment of a mid-rise building type-four to five storey pilottee apartment buildings. Thus, the exterior manifestation of the apartment building from a street point of view is limited to a single two-dimensional façade; northern or southern depending on orientation of the lot in relation to the street. Furthermore, due to particular dynamics of real estate market the investors demand architects to design for maximum allowed envelope to be built to maximize the profit return of the investment. Under such circumstances, instead of volumetric composition or even planar layout of the project, it is the main façade of the building with the maximum depth of 20 to 40 centimeters that is actually designed. In fact, architects commit themselves to the somewhat strange task of a graphic designer that designs a two-dimensional composition layout at the scale of a four to five storey building.

Under such circumstances we have tried to incorporate the following set of design strategies for all our projects that address the above mentioned set of problems:

Considering the exterior architectural surface or façade as a micro-section that needs to be architecturally developed as opposed to graphically composed.
Introducing variations in micro and macro-sections of architectural space, applying innovative construction techniques combined with choice of cheap materials.

Published projects

: Amirkabir Department Store by Arsh Design Studio This project involves the designing of the facade and landscape of a department store located on one of the focal point of commercial district in northern part...

: Dollat 1 by Arsh Design Studio City of Tehran is an absurd constructed landscape. urban density is achieved through massive deployment of a mid-rise building type — four to five storey...

: Shahinshahr Bus Terminal by Arsh Design Studio Shahinshahr Regional Transportation Hub is adjacent to Tehran-Isfahan Highway in Iran. Six ticket booths divide the rectangular interior space of the building...

: Checker Box (Khorsand) by Arsh Design Studio City of Tehran is an absurd constructed landscape. Here, the conventional typology for achieving high density which is that of towers, is replaced by a...

: Shali Shop by Arsh Design Studio In this project of conversion of an old workshop to a shopping center, the design concept is about wrapping. The bright colored material wraps around the old...

: Dollat 2 by Arsh Design Studio City of Tehran is an absurd constructed landscape. Urban density is achieved through massive deployment of a mid-rise building type-four to five storey...

: 2 Offices for 2 Brothers by Arsh Design Studio Enterprise: The clients were two brothers, a geologist and a civil engineer, who asked for two autonomous offices. The driving force in designing the interior...