TEHRAN-The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) International Awards for Excellence 2024 have been announced, with the 22 winners, with two Iranian projects among them.

The winners provide a worldwide showcase of exemplary architecture, and spanning from sustainably minded schools to secluded private homes and a sculptural subway station entrance, ISNA reported.

Together, the winners comprise standout architectural responses to contemporary social, cultural, and environmental challenges – whether climate change, architectural reuse, or building for wellbeing and community – that represent a shift in the way buildings are conceived and constructed.

The Iranian projects include Jadgal Elementary School in Sistan-Baluchestan Province and Jahad Metro Plaza in Tehran.

Jadgal Elementary School is located in the village of Seyyedbar in the southeast of the country.

Like a game of architectural peekaboo, the playful rebuilding of a school in rural Iran – Jadgal Elementary School features a circular walled site with naturally ventilated classrooms around a central playground that also serves as a community space. Insulated concrete formwork meets local earthquake legislation, while local earth clay creates a flood-protective finish and is easy to repair.

DAAZ Office designed and implemented the structure based on a request from villagers to build a school. The project started with an effort to change the villagers’ intellectual and social layers, empower rural women, create public participation, and turn it into leverage for building a school.

At present, apart from the educational function, this school has other functions such as a children’s play area on holidays and nights, a gathering place for villagers and their families, a place to watch movies and football in groups, a library, and a tourist residence.

The school is managed and maintained by a team of villagers and teachers, and part of the income from the tourism and needlework sections is spent on its maintenance. In this way, the school is built with the participation of the villagers and is perpetually maintained.

KA Architecture Studio has redeveloped the Jahad Metro Plaza. The project was a successful attempt to redefine subway entrances in the central part of the capital city.

The rebuilding of a subway station entrance, Jahad Metro Plaza creates a local landmark and a social public space. Mesh arches clad in 300,000 bricks made from local soil are sculptural, welcoming, and low-budget.

The architects wanted to define these entrances as a free and definable platform by users for urban events and the re-creation of unusable points for citizens in line with the general plan of transforming Tehran into a pedestrian-oriented city. They have created a new democratic open space around the station that is sheltered by a cluster of barrel-vaulted forms.

“We tried to allocate most of the cost of the project, instead of using industrial materials, to local methods in this part of the city. This decision activates these semi-active workshops around the city of Tehran, where the tradition of making bricks by hand has not been lost,” said KA Architecture Studio. “The main materials we used in this project were 300,000 handmade bricks that were produced by eight workshops around Tehran.”

“This project creates generous public spaces using handmade bricks made from locally sourced materials by local craftspeople. Beautifully crafted, the building makes good use of natural light and ventilation to create a welcoming civic space in what would commonly be a much colder and more utilitarian structure,” judges commented about their selection.

Located on a busy traffic intersection near central Tehran, the new entrance for the Meydan-e-Jahad metro station forms part of a wider initiative to make the city more pedestrian-oriented after decades of car-focused development.

To the northeast, the corner of the site has been finished with stone paving and low brick benches incorporating planting, creating a flexible space that can be used by performers, street sellers, and the public.

The RIBA International Awards are architecture’s highest global accolades, celebrating buildings from around the world that demonstrate visionary thinking, design excellence, and social impact.

It is one of the world’s most rigorously judged architecture awards, with every selected project visited by a group of international experts and awarded by our Awards Group and Grand Jury.

All the winners of the RIBA International Awards for Excellence go forward to compete for the RIBA International Prize 2024, to be announced in November this year.

 Photo: Jadgal Elementary School in Sistan-Baluchestan Province (L) and Jahad Metro Plaza in Tehran

SS/