Nabshi Gallery (Tehran, Iran)

Nabshi Gallery - ZAV Architects, Mohammadreza Ghodousi and Roshanak Sajadian is an entry in the Colour in Architecture category at the 2019 World Architecture News Awards.

Nowadays, city of Tehran is hosting a very interesting inner-city migration pattern, converting an old house to a gallery with its fluid circulation inquiry is such an example of this.

The old building structure is based on bearing-walls and the overall construction is very much informed by masonry techniques. As such, in functional conversion of the project, fixity of the structural grid introduced certain challenges to be addressed through design.

The question at hand is how to restructure the interior space as an open-plan connected to open space through soft and negotiable boundaries.

The project dates back to the early-modern era and yet has survived the post-revolutionary war years. As such, the building bears the scars of the war era. Just like many other houses of the inner city, during the war years, the building is retrofitted to accommodate an underground bomb-shelter. The bomb-shelter is the manifestation of a certain landscape of fear. The shelter plays a central role in this programmatic conversion, redefined as the start point of spatial continuity and fluidity.

The color Blue is the connecting agent of different spatial pockets, starting from the bomb shelter.

The color Blue is going to present on every surface to emphasis on continuity and boundlessness as if vertical elements can be considered floated objects (together with gallery visitors) on blue levels from entrance to the rooftop, therefore project google map is blue too.