binb (building in building)

Project credits:
ELENI KOSTIKA ARCHITECTURE

Architect:
Eleni Kostika

Assistant architects:
Chrysa Marouda, Yiannis Vogiatzis

Structural Engineering Consultant:
Yiannis Tsopanakis, YPSILON

Environmental Engineer Consultant:
Nikolas Nakos & Partners Engineering Consultants

 

binb  (building in building)  /  multi-storey building for Benetton in the centre of Tehran

The project entry was selected amongst more than 600 entries from 60 countries in the world, and it is the only one selected from Greece.

Designed as a submission entry for the International Ideas Competition "Designing in Tehran" organised by Benetton Group in the beginning of this year, binb  is a 12 level multi-storey building of 12,000 sq.m  of multi-use development with retail, office and residential spaces.

 

 

This building is an analogy of a body dressed up with an external fabric. The dress becomes as important as the body itself, and acquires an identity of its own. Both remain in constant interaction. The exterior fabric folds inwards to a single point of entry, to create a solid yet seductive curvaceous main south façade.

 

The necessary open space on ground level in front of the building acts as a kind of an external public lobby area.

 

Narrow cuts along the thick dark cement surface of this folding façade wall provide openings towards the city and bring linear rays of light inside: subtle indications of an internal presence. The external fabric continues folding around as a lighter more translucent motif of textured glass. The building is perceived as one single entity from the outside, a curious mysterious and seductive object within the contemporary city of Tehran.

 

Once entered it becomes compartmentalized and differentiated, full of life: An interactive interior world of volumes, functions, and movement of people. The smaller entities within the building are analyzed as either volumes or planes with different use (commercial, office, domestic) which can remain autonomous and also interact with each other within the same enclosure.

 

From the outside, only what is necessary is revealed: entry points for people and cars penetrate the external fabric. A slight elevational tilt of the main south façade gives visual contact of the street level inside the commercial areas.

 

 

 

Office spaces become concentrated into two singular organic building entities within the building, which vary in size on each level.

 

 

The office plan outline becomes a garden for the apartments on top level, which occupy the space around them.

 

Top level concludes in height to protect a secondary roof garden for communal use.

Obscurity, interplay between inside and outside, and interaction of exterior appearance, form and function are main objectives of this proposal. They have been explored through a contemporary architectural perspective with purpose to ground on a rich and complex almost  veiled internal cultural territory, in the process of becoming externalized.

 

 

The project will be exhibited and also presented at a live presentation before the audience and the WAF jury for the final selection on Thursday 05.11.2009, at the World Architecture Festival venue: the Centro de Convenciones Internacionales de Barcelona, designed by renowned Spanish architect José Luis Mateo. 

Link: www.worldarchitecturefestival.com