These two North-to-South main roads have a very critical role in Tehran’s contemporary growth and development and have formed different shopping scenarios and behaviors through their context. Tehran has three shopping scenarios: the Grand Bazar in the South, Shopping malls in the North and shopping streets which are developed through the body of these main roads. Literally, the DNA and basic cells of the shopping streets are shops on two side of the street which work separately and are connected through the walkways.

Design Idea: The existing structure designed, is supposed to perform as a shopping mall with nine floors retail; but according to its location in the street with small scale shops and retails, such a large scale program will not survive in that context because of its opposite shopping behavior and program scale to the context. It’s clear that a shopping mall works via its car access to the road and the capacity of its parking is an advantage that absorbs more people. However, in that specific location, the survival of the structure depends on the interaction and connection of people with the shop fronts directly.

This is the way the structure needs to perform in Shariati Street. Providing that connection needs a new idea and organization which changes the performance of the structure from a packed shopping mall to a vertical street. To reach that idea, the main facade of the building is open to the public space, and provides the walkway to grow up and pass the structures for bringing interactions and public activities to the whole level of the structure. Now the structure not only performs as a separate large scale unit which is injected to the context, but it is responsive to the city interactions and works as a part of the street circulation and walkway vertical growth with the small scale shops and retails.

This idea influenced and generated by the shopping street performances and organization which welcomes and allows people to go up through a vertical street to the top of the structure that has a great view of the city. Functionally this organization divided the building into two parts; indoor and outdoor. The street side which is an outdoor vertical open space and walking the path with small scale retail units and the indoor part has larger scale retails as a department store which has a different theme on each floor.

Credits: - FMZD - Visualizer/Presentation - Nima Shoaie - FMZD - Lead Architect - Aida Sarboland - FMZD - Visualizer/Presentation - Sahar Gohari Moghadam - FMZD - Architect - Anahita Jeihani - FMZD - Visualizer - Ali Kazemi