Ravand-E-Hamahang . BIG

Commercial-Residential Complex . Mashhad

source: BIG . bustler

What is a hotel?

An accumulation of rooms tailored for individual visitors.

To reach the required density and respond to the city codes, the two buildings are bent into two V-shaped volumes creating three triangular urban spaces: a sunken market, an open courtyard and a public park in the middle. To meet the demands and desires of individual guests, the hotel has been designed inside out. As a result each V-shaped slab is composed of a fish bone structure of rooms looking towards the Holy Shrine of Imam Reza.

Considering that the site of the project forms the eastern gateway to the urban area around the Holy Shrine, the project proposes a building that shelters the residences and public spaces from the unpleasant noise and the crowd on the main Boulevard while opening up towards the religious area.  Moving towards the shrine, one experiences a closed and simple façade respecting Mashhad’s Holy icon. The scale of the wall is broken down; it is an accumulation of single rooms of different types based on a specific geometric pattern. Moving in the opposite direction, away from the shrine, one faces maximum transparency as the facades open up towards the holy site.

The complex is designed to provide each pilgrim or tourist with an optimal experience of the religious site. Each unit is sheltered from the traffic noise, screened from the views of neighbors and by-passers and only opens up toward the view of the shrine. The resulting architecture is simultaneously calm and varied, well integrated and outstanding, traditional and contemporary.