Corner Villa: A Red Route Through a Pitched White Volume
Corner Villa in Mazandaran, northern Iran, uses a pitched white volume to establish a clear outline, then opens that volume with deep red cuts. Seen from the neighboring houses, it is relatively closed; toward the landscape, glazing and terraces expose a different face. The 450-square-metre house, completed in 2025, is organized around this contrast between enclosure and opening.
The entrance is a recess, not an attachment
A cut at the corner creates a covered approach within the building’s outline. The white brick surface continues around it, while red marks the depth of the entrance. This gives arrival a protected threshold without adding a separate porch. Narrow openings on the more reserved side contrast with the larger glazed frontage, making the orientation of the house legible before entering.
Living beneath a visible route
Inside, the photographs show white floors, walls and ceilings interrupted by the red stair and window surrounds. The stair is not hidden behind the main room: it crosses the tall space and makes movement between levels visible. Dining and living areas share views of that route, while the ground-floor glazing connects the interior with the pool edge. The contrast is spatial as well as chromatic, because the stair gives the open room an upper layer.
Giving the roof a usable edge
The owner’s request for an inhabited roof is addressed by recesses within the pitched form and a route linking upper spaces and terraces. The long roof-level outdoor strip looks beyond the development toward the wooded landscape. Rather than treating the roof as one continuous exposed deck, the cuts create places with different relationships to the remaining volume.
A quieter material contrast in the bedroom
The main bedroom introduces green at the bathroom and entrance zone. In the photographs, this color separates the more enclosed service area from the white sleeping space. It is a smaller-scale version of the distinction elsewhere in the house: concentrated color clarifies a transition instead of covering every surface. Bright finishes and extensive glazing also make detailing, cleaning and control of reflections relevant to everyday use.
Original project drawings
Project credits: Super Void Space, led by Nima Mirza Mohamadi; design team: Rana Siaghi and Shamim Parvane. Structural consultant: Poolad Sazeh; lighting: Nooraneh; other consulting: Tarang. Mazandaran, Iran; 2025.
✦ ArchUp Editorial Insight
A corner plot within a residential development, outward views and the client’s wish to use the roof are the documented conditions shaping this house. The design responds by treating the pitched volume as something that can be cut into: a sheltered entry is removed from one corner, terraces interrupt the roof, and a stair links the resulting levels. For the occupant, the roof becomes part of circulation rather than an inaccessible cap. Red surfaces help distinguish this route from the largely white rooms and exterior, making color a guide to spatial depth as well as a visual accent. The trade-off lies in the number of exposed junctions produced by the cuts. A roof terrace and an open stair require careful attention to drainage, waterproofing, guards and access for cleaning; the photographs do not establish how those details perform over time. Nor does a visually continuous route necessarily offer the same ease of movement to every person. The useful lesson is the coordination of entrance, view and roof occupation within one recognizable form, with its complexity concentrated at the places where the solid envelope opens.
