Herbal Products Fair
The location of this project is on the hillside of a stone-made mountain, in a small town named Ghamsar. There were two main challenges in design, first the extreme slope of the ground and second the heavy snow, and rain on most of the days of the year.
Bionic Design
I have considered a kind of indigenous plant named “Palmetto” as the base concept for designing structure and form. the Shape of the Palmetto leaves has inspired me to design a structure concordant with the ground’s topography. The structure includes curved beams cascading from the highest level step by step to the lowest. Columns look like trunks of trees with intertwined branches.
For designing the plan, the difference in floor levels has been utilized to create spatial diversity and zoning. The form design process has been started with structure detail. In other words, the form is the result of repeating the structure’s module and joining the branches to cover a plan with spiral circulation.
Sustainable Design
Rainwater Harvesting System
An inclusive rainwater collecting system is embedded in the roof. The rainwater and melted snow are directed toward the columns benchmarks by gutters, then the water flows through several pipes around each column and is redirected to 4 tanks under the ground. This stored water could be reused for fountains, greywater, and also irrigation of the plants of the central greenhouse.
Minimum Environmental Manipulation
Since sustainable design and green design seek to minimize negative impacts on the natural environment; one of the project’s most important goals was to have the least amount of excavation. Which considering the hard and stony soil of the site, it will also reduce construction costs too. On the other hand, the high slope of the land made it challenging to achieve this goal. Therefore, the design’s main part has been done in sections consistent with topography. In addition, I have kept a part of the natural substrate untouched as a central garden.
Saving Thermal Energy
In order to prevent energy loss from the walls in the cold climate of Ghamsar, the form is designed in a compact way. The central garden with a roof made of transparent polyurethane helps to preserve heat energy due to the greenhouse effect.
Student Project / Architectural Technology Project III
2D Modeling: AutoCAD
3D Modeling: Rhinoceros 3D
Post production: Lumion, Adobe Photoshop