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This 1400 m2 freestanding villa in Tehran is built against a mountainside, with a garden that is raised 17 meters above street level.

The facade is cladded with natural travertine stone: a famous high quality local used in modern architecture as facade material, wall cladding, flooring and Versailles Pattern. The wish of the owners to park their cars underground, resulted in a 20 meter long tunnel below the garden, leading towards the parking underneath the villa. The villa has 2 underground floors and 2 floors above ground. Visitors enter the villa via stairs or elevator and a walk through the garden.

Inspired by the traditional Persian architecture – mainly the configuration of the courtyard houses and their microclimatic effect – a glazing inner garden with a retractable roof is positioned in the core of the villa, providing the building with enough daylight and fresh air on every floor. The glass panes around the inner garden guarantee that sufficient light is brought into the swimming pool area located at level -1. A second insulated sliding roof protects the house from hot summers, when temperatures can reach over 40 degrees Celsius. Similar to the courtyard houses, the inner garden functions as an intimate private space with a pleasant micro-climate. Purity and hygiene were very important themes which have been considered in the detailing of the design, to facilitate cleaning and to ensure a fixed sequence of successive spaces in the wellness area.Purity is also manifstd by the Volakas White marble, on the stairs and living area:  a  natural stone, extracted from the quarries of northern Greece renowned for its elegance, White Volakas is characterized by a white background with fine veins that can vary in color from cream, hazelnut and light gray.