Davaloo Residential
Residential / Yakhchal, Tehran
A New Landscape of Urban Living
In the dense urban fabric of northern Tehran, residential architecture often becomes a repetition of enclosed volumes and conventional balconies. This project challenges that pattern by redefining the terrace as an inhabitable landscape rather than an architectural appendage.
Situated on a three-sided site in Dolou Alley, Shariati Street, the building rises eleven residential floors above ground with five basement levels while taking full advantage of its northern, southern and western orientations.
The architectural concept is rooted in the interaction between a clear structural grid and a continuous system of free-flowing terraces. Instead of expressing mass, the building expresses movement. The terraces weave around the structural frame, creating an ever-changing sequence of outdoor rooms, gardens and living platforms that extend everyday life beyond the interior.
Large transparent façades dissolve the boundary between inside and outside, allowing daylight, vegetation and panoramic city views to become integral components of the living experience. The layered composition of structure, landscape and open space gives the building a dynamic identity that continuously changes with light, season and perspective.
More than a residential building, the project proposes an alternative way of inhabiting the contemporary city, where architecture becomes a framework for openness, nature and human interaction.
Alternative 2: This alternative explores a more layered and protected façade, where continuous terraces, vertical screens, and integrated greenery create a gradual transition between interior and exterior. The combination of deep balconies and shading elements improves privacy and solar control while maintaining visual openness. The flowing edges of the terraces reinforce the continuity of the building envelope and create a more intimate relationship between the residential spaces and the landscape.
Alternative 3: This alternative develops a more open and continuous expression through curved balconies, transparent façades, and lightweight perforated screens. The rounded terrace edges soften the building mass while creating wider visual connections with the surrounding city. Integrated planting extends along the perimeter of each level, transforming the balconies into inhabited green thresholds between the interior spaces and the urban landscape.
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