Jahad Metro Plaza
by KA architecture studio
Client Municipality of Tehran
Award RIBA International Awards for Excellence 2024
Jahad Metro Plaza is the deceptively simple rebuilding of a metro station entrance on a busy traffic intersection in Tehran. The transformation of a transit infrastructure into a sociable local landmark and new neighbourhood public space.
The Jahad Metro Plaza was a rundown single storey block on an unprepossessing urban traffic intersection. With the introduction of a series of simply detailed brick clad arches, forming a new envelope above the descending escalators, the architects have amplified the new entrance into an airy triple height arrival space.
This is beautifully arranged to be looked onto from ground level by a mini theatre seating within the adjacent arches; a place to meet, to wait for someone or watch a performance, the simple array of arches also forming internal galleries and arrival points.
The local street vendors sell wares in and around them on stalls outside. The arches bring a traditional Persian form back into an easy everyday use, their sculptural form creating a fresh sense of identity in the local neighbourhood.
Formed from simple mesh structures, the structures are clad in a tactile brick. A material well suited to Tehran's climate and pollution levels, as well as the city’s limited budget, and in a city where labour is less costly than many modern product supply chains it is also inherently more sustainable.
The project employed traditional workshops in the surrounding rural areas to make its 300,000 bricks from local soil.
Tehran's metro system entrances had been identified by the architects in a research project they had initiated, to address the need for a city-wide public realm strategy. They found these were spaces that people traditionally gathered in and offered the opportunity to create more informal internal and external social spaces throughout the city at the same time as infrastructural upgrades.
This particular site also sits on one of Tehran's main arterial roads, part of the cities original urban planning and known for its public monuments further into the city. The idea of another local landmark along it was a natural extension.
Location: Tehran, Iran
Date of completion: 10/11/2022
Cost: £150,000.00
Gross internal area: 800 m²
