Kohan Ceram Central Office Building Mixed-Use

The perforated brick facade of Hooman balazadeh's Kohan Ceram Central Office Building Mixed-Use operates as a sophisticated screen mediating between public and private realms, the circular apertures functioning symbolically as countless eyes or portals through which filtered exchange occurs between interior sanctuary and exterior world, evoking traditions of mashrabiya screens and jali work that have long enabled visual connection while preserving privacy and modulating harsh climate conditions. The terracotta materiality carries deep cultural resonance, clay being among humanity's oldest building materials, its warm earth tones suggesting groundedness, permanence, and connection to geological time scales that dwarf human temporality, while the firing process that transforms malleable earth into durable ceramic speaks to alchemical transformation and the application of creative intelligence to natural materials. The geometric perforation pattern activates archetypal associations with textile weaving, basket making, and other craft traditions where repetitive elements accumulate into coherent wholes, suggesting patient labor and the meditative quality of making through accretion. Vegetation emerging through apertures introduces symbolic readings of nature penetrating constructed boundaries, life finding paths through human artifice, and the permeable relationship between built and natural environments that biophilic design philosophy celebrates. The singular human figure visible within the composition assumes archetypal resonance as the inhabitant, the dweller within, whose presence transforms abstract architectural form into lived experience and reminds viewers that buildings exist ultimately to shelter human activity and aspiration. The interplay of solid and void, light and shadow, suggests philosophical meditation on presence and absence, the material and the immaterial, the seen and the screened, inviting contemplation of how architecture shapes our perception and experience of boundary, threshold, and the gradations between public exposure and private retreat.

This project is the headquarters for Kohan Ceram Brick Manufacturing Company, including showroom, sales office, and a guest unit. Situated alongside a highway in Tehran, this project marks the boundary between the residential neighborhood and the freeway in the urban fabric. The main criterion was to remain neutral in the urban scale while creating a tangible entity in the local scale. The brick were used as the main representative of the company. The brick module not only forms the façade, but also forms the entirety of the project both on the interior and the exterior.