Zi House, Hamed Akhavizadegan

Project Name: ZI
Function: Residential
Office: Edge office
Lead Architects: Hamed Akhavizadegan
Design Team: Nastaran Shahrokhi, Nima Heyat, Saba Mehrara, Mohsen Rezakhani, Nader Namvar
Interio Design: Edge office
Client: Raspina Company
Constructor: Chaharsotoon Company
Lighting: Iman Shemshadi
Mechanical Installations Engineer: Iman Shemshadi
Mechanical Structure: Split & Water heater
Structural Engineer: Vahid Ahyaei
Structur: Steel structure
Location: Qods City, Tehran
Total Land Area: 65 m2
Area Of Construction: 80 m2
Date: October 2021- January 2022
Photographer: Mohammad Hosein Hamzehlouei
Website: www.Edgeoffice.space
Email: Info@edgeoffice.space
Instagram: edgeoffce

Nowadays numbers and quantities have become the common currency of any scientific, social, or even cultural and artistic exchange; which itself causes the emergence of contradictory phenomena like: To buy the experience of life calculated by square meters!
Accordingly, the purchase of a house or villa has been affected by numbers and money-oriented quantities, rather than being based on behavioral, cultural and architectural qualitative criterias. The consequences of this phenomenon can be found in bringing the concept of “house” down to “shelter”. Is it possible to take any action to resolve these contradictions and improve the quality of life in a house?
Facing the project employer’s need for a small merchantable house, provided us with the opportunity to answer this question. We knew that there were many features affecting people’s minds to choose their desired house. Economic issues for example, and maybe in some optimistic states, pristine construction and least amount of defects. It is as if the “architect” is the one whose sole job is to maximize the usable square footage in order to generate more profits; Meterage that sometimes expresses our assessment of the quality of space. Houses with low floor area are commonly called the home for singles! Expressing the quality of space with heterogeneous numerical quantity! It seems that this process will become more critical in the future with the prevailing conditions in the society and the increasing need for a fast construction system. Looking into various conventional methods of quick construction, we found that the position of architecture in the common system for building houses has been reduced to designing the plan solely. Quick Construction System + Architecture (plan design) = Merchantable Product (lacking spatial value) In this model, the manufacturer uses common construction methods, all limiting the architecture to existing known structural systems, with the aim of reducing construction time and early delivery of the product at the lowest cost. To solve this challenge, we convert the model into a different direction from the employer’s and market’s thoughts: Architecture Design (space and detail design) + Design Fitted Construction System = Product Worth Living In (with spatial and functional qualities). In this model, architecture seeks to restore the forgotten layers of life at homeو to the spaces, either in the design of the plan, in the way of execution, or in the construction details.
As a result, this model achieves a new type of livable space production, which is although created with a small size and high speed of construction, has qualitative characteristics which leads to breaking the stereotypes of the current residential construction: allocating the worst and least space to the bathroom, maximum use of the roofed space, lack of detail design, not considering the lifespan of the building & etc. So this time the “house” can be exchanged through the following definitions:
Small house with high ceiling and a glass-walled living room for imagination
Upstair with a work space and a private bedroom
Bathroom with a bathtub facing green landscapes
Kitchen with a flexible dining area
Storage and facilities
Balcony for sightseeing
Cozy corner for the time of isolation
Spaces and details to discover
and experience life in all means!