Villa Kouhsar by Hopo Design
Villa Kouhsar traces a measured route through Koohsar, a developing villa district in Alborz Province, Iran, where orchards give way to new construction. Hopo Design shapes the house as a careful negotiation between front yard, built volume, and pool courtyard, using courtyards, axes, and controlled openings to handle privacy, security, and climate. Across this compact plot, each movement from gate to water builds a distinct yet continuous domestic experience.
The approach begins at the edge of a changing landscape, where former orchards now sit beside new villas. A sequence of planted ground, hardscape, and water draws the eye inward, pulling attention from the dusty street to a layered courtyard world held behind the boundary walls.
This is a house in Koohsar, Alborz Province, Iran, planned by Hopo Design as a careful negotiation between interior rooms and open yards. The project studies how a domestic plot can organize front yard, built mass, and rear pool courtyard so each part supports the next. Movement sets the agenda here: every turn, offset axis, and compressed threshold adjusts light, breeze, and privacy for daily life.
Sequencing The Grounds
Entry begins beside parking and a caretaker’s corner, where service needs stay at the edge yet still close to the gate. From there, the path steps into a small fruit garden, an intimate pocket that recalls the area’s earlier orchards and brings scent and texture right up against the circulation route. A third pause lands at the pond and gazebo in the main courtyard, which work together as both passage and destination, inviting short stays before crossing toward the house.
Shifting Axis Through The House
Once the visitor reaches the built volume, the plan’s main axis becomes clear yet never rigid. The organizing line bends and breaks slightly as it threads front yard, interior center, and rear courtyard, extending the journey rather than pushing straight through. This quiet misalignment creates changing viewpoints and layered perspectives, so rooms, yards, and transitional corners reveal themselves one by one instead of all at once.
Thresholds Of Light And Privacy
At the entrance, the volume pulls back and fractures, carving a semi-enclosed outdoor room that belongs both to house and garden. This covered yet open threshold manages climate with shade and air while also softening the shift from public courtyard to private interior. Solid walls respond to the hot, dry weather by limiting direct exposure, while transparent surfaces keep a visual link between front and rear yards, so the plot reads as one continuous ground. The arrangement addresses security during periods of absence with a robust outer shell, yet maintains internal openings that preserve daylight and long views.
Central Stair And Quiet Courtyard
Inside, a central zone gathers the main circulation and marks the meeting point of the two outdoor courts. From this position, a previously hidden quiet courtyard at the back suddenly comes into view, turning what was a solid mass from the front into a more porous sequence. The stair rises slightly above the floor as a sculpted element, both open and enclosed, asserting its role as connector to upper private rooms while freeing shaded living area underneath.
Pool Courtyard At The Rear
The final movement ends at the backyard pool courtyard, placed at ground level yet oriented upward toward sky and light. Though outside the built volume, this yard remains entirely private behind the house, protected from neighboring views and street presence. Transparent elements adjacent to the pool maintain visual continuity with the front side, so the two courts read as related halves of a single domestic landscape.
By the time one reaches the far edge of the plot, the earlier steps through parking, garden, pond, entrance court, and stair have coalesced into a clear mental map. Each axis shift, courtyard, and pause contributes to a layered experience where interior and exterior rely on one another. In a district between orchard past and villa future, the house stands as a careful arrangement of paths, rooms, and yards tuned to movement, climate, and daily routines.
Photography courtesy of Hopo Design
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