Prayer room of AB o ATASH Park

Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST), Faculty of Architecture, Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tehran

Project idea

The site of the project is located in the Abbas Abad hills in Tehran that maritime trips are called and There are buildings with cable and tent structures.
The first topic that should be considered in the design of this prayer room was the concept of prayer room as a place for worship, a clean and quiet place among the hustle and bustle of the site and the city. For this reason, we arrive at a pure form called the cube, which is the epitome of tranquility, stagnance and secrecy among the bustle of the site.
Another topic that should be considered is the context of the project, which is called maritime trips. We tried to design this pure cubic mass suspended in water. A metaphor of floating in the sea wave.
On the other hand, the orientation of the prayer room to the qiblah was also important in our design, and therefore our cube turned to the qiblah inside the water.
Considering the rotation of the axes, especially on the axis of the qiblah, plays an important role in the formation of the mosques of Iran, which is an example in the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque in Isfahan. In this plan, the three main axes of the city, the entrance and the qiblah combined and created the form.
Another topic that mattered to us was the linkage of this prayer room with the architecture of Iran's mosques, a point that is important in the mosques of Iran, is the attention to the urban and human scale in the main cover (the dome) of the mosque, so that the dome of two shells was used. We tried to focus on this topic and create the human and urban scale of the building by placing a cube and transparent shell on a suspended cube. The Pattern in the shell is also inspired by the masonry lines in the mosques of Iran.
Too, We tried to design the entrance of the prayer room like the entrance of the mosques of Iran. High and decorated.
and At the entrance to the ramps, there is a symbol similar to the mosque minarets. Which is an indication of the religiousness of this place and has an identity role for this place.
The use of light in religious space plays an important role in influencing space. So, we created the gap in the cubic roof in the direction of Qibla. In the prayer room, and we increased the sense of space by creating colored glasses.

Project description

The prayer room space is divided into two parts: male and female, where women are placed at a higher level than men. Two ramps have been used to access these spaces, one of the ramps goes down to the ground and the other to the top of the ground. The ramp that goes down the ground goes to the men's prayer room, and the men's and women's restrooms are on the ramp.
Men go on their way to the ramp to reach the prayer room, after the abduction, and women with a step up to a higher level to reach their prayer room, after the abduction.

Technical information

The main structure of this building is two concrete shells that create ramps and eventually the mass of the prayer room comes upon them, and then this shell reaches the ground.