The Rome and Tehran-based architecture practice uc21 architects led by Amin Haghighat Gou have recently completed Cantilever House, a contemporary single-family home located in Mosha, Damavand, Iran.
Architect's statement: The Project is located in Mosha, Damavand, 60 Km from Tehran at 2400 meters altitude and we have very strong winter.
The land area is about 600 m2 with dimensions of 30 x 20 meters and a slope of 20%. According to the following expression we confronted with such a difficult circumstance and trying to do our best to get the advantage of available spaces and land in order to meet the client demands. Due to this description, we decided to divide the land in 3 parts: the biggest one located in the north of the land for locate the building in where there is the relevant road. The second part is used for the outdoor entertainment activities and the third part will be the green area of the lot.
From this base we designed the basement for entertainment (consisting of jacuzzi and bar) which is directly connected to the outdoor entertainment area where there is a heated swimming pool, a fireplace, and a multipurpose area.
image © Mohammad Hassan Ettefagh
The ground floor is used for the private area (sleeping area), and we designed 2 different volumes, a little one for the customer master bedroom and a big one used for the villa entry and guest bedrooms. For have more spaces and add more functions in this floor, we decided to extend both volumes and rotate by 30° in the southern part of them in order to have one more bedroom in the western part and also to have a bigger master bedroom. Furthermore, These Ground Floor extensions it allows us to partially cover the swimming pool (useful for winter use on snowy days) and totally the fireplace area. At last, we pushed a northern portion of the biggest volume to have the building entry and to create a third little volume used as parking.
The last level (first floor) is used for the living area, also divided in 2 volumes, one for the living room and one for kitchen and dining area. These volumes are placed perpendicular to the lower floors for have an additional function of the ground floor extensions: two large terraces. The living area is located on the top floor for the spectacular view we have on the surrounding landscape.
image © Mohammad Hassan Ettefagh
This concept helped us to have more area on the villa and have more garden area too, to satisfy all the client's needs.
The best decision is to make a villa in harmony with the surrounding mountains by giving it a shape that resembles them and by extending some area of the floors by 1 meter alternating them, in this way pitches were formed, this facilitated both the drainage from rainwater both remembers and is very much in harmony with the environment in which it is found. Furthermore, it was decided to give a completely white color to the building to camouflage it with the snow in winter and make it significant with importance in summer. Finally, large glass surfaces were used to admire the beautiful view of the mountains
About uc21 architects
Amin Haghighat Gou, Founder, Chief Architect: Italian-Iranian Architect, Born in Rome. PHD in Architecture in Rome University of La Sapienza with 110/110 in 2012. Partner and founder of uc21 architects after working for MODOSTUDIO in Rome who have a partnership still now. uc21 architects has win more national and international competition and we work with luxury and high brand in any field. from 2014 we make a branch in Tehran and working with private and public company, winning 3 competition as well. Special Mention Prize in Asian Architecture Award in 2016.
Top TEN Project of Tehran Municipality and BEST FACADE PROJECT of 14th Muicipality of Tehran in 2017. Top 5 in Brick awards, finalist of Memar Award and Honare Memari Award in 2018.
