Afra House
Afra House project started as a renovation of a very old house located in Lavasan, which is a small town north of Tehran, Iran. The house was on top of a slope in a property with a split-level in its land, creating a rough passageway to get to the house from the entrance including a long flight of stairs and a path through the garden. The main objectives of the project defined based on the existing condition of the house, which was first, to convert the two separate levels of the building into a duplex by inserting a staircase. Secondly, rethinking the accessibility to the main building from the entrance at the street level and finally adding some features and functions that are necessary to a vacation house, such as an outdoor pool, care taker’s suite, Jacuzzi and office space.
To facilitate the accessibility of the main building, the strategy was to place an elevator near the entrance to get to the level of the first floor of the villa and placing a small bridge connecting the elevator platform to the first-floor terrace of the house.
The new circulation system defined primary access via the elevator and the bridge, and secondary access through the landscape stairs and the garden. Since the main entrance of the house moved to the first floor, main public functions such as living room, kitchen and the guest bedroom were placed at the first floor, which left the smaller more secluded and private ground floor for two master bedrooms, a mini kitchen, and a small living room. In other words, the shift of the main entrance from the ground level to the first floor created a flipped typology were the public functions, which are usually at the ground level in the conventional house move to the first level, and the ground level housed the more private functions of the residence.
Interior spaces of the existing building modified on both levels and the sloped wooden roof preserved to keep the familiar feeling and quality of the interior. One of the key decisions affecting the spatial organization was locating the most appropriate place to insert the staircase connecting the two levels. At the ground floor staircase lands in between the two bedrooms, which both have large windows looking towards the garden.
The split-level in the land and the altitude difference created an opportunity to form a three-story volume near the entrance providing the additional spaces project needed. This additional building contains the care taker’s suite at the ground level, office at the first level and a changing area and Jacuzzi at the second level near the outdoor pool. These spaces are accessible from the elevator that starts next to the parking spaces and reaches to the top of the added building at the level of the bridge.
The façade of the building was designed as two light and dark interlocking volumes, where the terrace creates a setback between the two. The geometry of the bridge generated based on the location of each end, and the locations of the existing trees in the site. A three-story volume that was added in the front of the project was formed in a way to create an entrance area at the bottom, increase view towards the valley for the office, and increase the view from the pool deck and to create a sharp viewing-deck corner at the top.
As a whole, the project consists of two old and new volumes, connected by a bridge that navigates over the steep and contrasting landscape. Having the swimming pool on one side and the garden on the other. Two levels of the landscape have different characteristics which could be described as one being more public consisted of parking spaces, the entrance and care taker’s suite, while the other works as a more private yard containing the swimming pool, access to the Jacuzzi, office and the green garden.