ARCHITECTURAL FOCUS
ARTIMAN RESIDENTIAL BUILDING
RECLAIMING AN ABANDONED STRUCTURE FOR CONTEMPORARY URBAN LIVING
Artiman Residential Building gives a second life to a long-abandoned structure in Tehran. Originally conceived as a fifteen-storey building with a classical architectural language, the unfinished concrete frame had remained disconnected from its surroundings and unsuited to contemporary residential life. Bonsar Architects chose to work with this compromised inheritance, treating the existing building as raw material for transformation rather than an obstacle to be removed.
The decision carries particular relevance in Tehran, where incomplete buildings can remain dormant for years. Despite the material and financial resources already invested in them, the lack of effective incentives for rehabilitation means that many are eventually demolished. Artiman explores another possibility: retaining the embodied value of the existing structure while radically changing how the building performs, appears, and is inhabited.
The original frame established the parameters of the intervention, but not its final expression. Its geometry was carefully reinterpreted to generate a new system of volumes, façades, interiors, terraces, and landscaped spaces. Selective additions and removals opened previously enclosed and fragmented plans, creating greater continuity across the building and a closer relationship between domestic space and the outdoors.
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