Walnut shell House

WALNUT SHELL HOUSE

Project File Form:
Position : design & build leader
Location : sadra town, shiraz , iran
Client : Dr.TAREGH
Buiding status : built in 2012
Site size : 2000m2
Site type : residential
Design material : brick , metal , concerete , stone , wood
Walnut Shell House, mainly, has been based on the one plain and also essential concept that is “projection and revival of existing quotidian masonry walls as a rough exterior shell”.
This two-story villa is situated in a green hillside area of the Shiraz's suburbs. The building primary structure has been implemented in 2003 and left over for a couple of years and ultimately in 2011 has been assigned to this office for reconstruction and completion with a limited time and budget.
Indeed, beyond the challenging to modify and redefining this typical shape of villa, we strived -with a vernacular vision- to accept the old structure as a meaning of existence, which can determine aesthetic aspects of indelibly and material resistance. In term of material, our approach has been stand on understanding and presenting capability and essence of local materials and use of their aesthetic qualities along with compatibility and return to nature. With this idea we used maintaining, polishing and lighting the old adobe bricks, by emphasizing on their natural shape and condition, to inspirit on these semi-ruins walls. As a matter of fact, "facade in this project is not created but rather it has been revealed”.
At the same time, we put our effort to present the internal forces of contemporary use with cube shape elements in contrast to the old structure. These elements –" light" and "empty inside"- are representatives of inside's "void" and that have been jumped out from the mass of earlier wan time adobe walls. The association of 50 cm walls of old brick and 2 cm of new single-shell stone, stand for a dynamic conflict and expose exposure aspects of the sustainability and internal environmental forces.