A Weekend Villa Near Tehran Grows Into a Full-Time Home
A weekend villa in Iran has been stretched into a permanent home, and its new arms reach out across three neighbouring orchards. The architecture studio ZAV Architects designed the extension, called Golmorad, in the town of Kouhsar on the outskirts of Tehran, the Iranian capital.
The house began as a weekend villa designed by Firouz Firouz. The client has now turned it into a home to live in all year. Dezeen reported that both ends of the existing house now extend into three adjacent orchard plots, which the client bought for the project.
The new sections are built from masonry, the traditional wall of stone or brick blocks, coated in plaster. A series of overlapping arches runs through the design. Their colour shifts from terracotta, a baked orange-brown clay, to blue. At one end, the building splits into two curved forms that gradually drop in height.
The two wings have very different jobs. One holds a bedroom and an ensuite bathroom. The other is an open-plan space combining kitchen, living room and dining room, which opens onto an outdoor pool.
Golmorad was shortlisted in the house extension category of the Dezeen Awards 2026, a list of finalists chosen before the winners are named. It then won the public vote, which ran alongside a playground also designed by ZAV Architects.
The studio has won recognition before. ZAV Architects was among the winners of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the Majara Residence and Community Redevelopment, a colourful domed cultural retreat on the Iranian island of Hormuz.
