House of Frames

Location: Shahsavar, Mazandaran, Iran

The 60-Frame project is poised on a 200-square-meter site in the verdant north of Iran. With a construction allowance of 130 square meters, the design strategically unfolds over three levels tailored to the client’s specifications. The envelope straddles the domains of apartments and villas, subtly blurring the conventional boundaries between these residential typologies through the adoption of a dramatically sloped roof. The project’s walls, soaring to an exceptional height of 15 meters, exhibit an unconventional scale. This deliberate maneuver ensures that the observer remains unaware of the project’s spatial depth when viewed from the courtyard, questioning whether the structure is defined by planes or volumes. At the courtyard’s terminus, the walls facing the street assume a dual role, acting as a deceptive second elevation. Central to the project’s design ethos is a collection of 30 frames, each of identical dimensions, which serve not only as windows but as still shots capturing and framing the dual vistas beyond. This uniformity in framing, ceiling design, and material selection weaves a cohesive thread through the project that convolutes distinct sets of historical and contemporary references.