Designed for and in collaboration with the architect’s wife, the villa is intended as a spatial dialogue between traditional Persian and modern architectural form. The ground-floor area freed by raising the house on pilotis is strictly modernist, while the walled second-floor terrace reflects local traditions. It is on the first floor that the dialogue comes into its own. Organised around a central void with a glass ‘funnel’ that channels rainwater down to a ground-level pond, this floor has folding doors that allow it to be either opened out into a modernist horizontal space, or divided up around a central naturally lit area, recalling the courtyard structure of traditional Persian homes.

Source: Aga Khan Trust for Culture