Benetton are an atypical brand insofar as they use an advertising strategy that relies on publishing of a number of discrete moments. They use their power to bring real-life conditions – either beautiful or tragic – to the fore. They, unlike other large retail brands, don’t ‘sell’ anything. Their brand is allied with Beauty, Truth and Empathy and a feeling of shared humanity. How can a building deliver on this principle? The proposal for Benetton have made that freedom possible through the provision of Tehran’s most precious public space; its (intimate) parks. The project argues that any urban building’s ultimate purpose is to provide a space for meaningful interaction – either face to face or implicit through the experience of shared space. The building occupies a prominent position on a boulevard known for its role within the everyday, unofficial encounters of the city’s youth: the Bluetooth strip. It provides the urban quality that is absent from any other store around the world: the un-programmed space. In this city where the interactions of Benetton’s target audience are curtailed – formalized – the project proposes the ultimate contribution the brand can make to Tehran; a collective space for human encounter, framing a series of ‘images’, asking us to contemplate a shared humanity. The essence of Benetton Tehran is that is it present in the fullest sense through its absence. The shop floor has been removed from street level – sent hovering above and visible below – and instead a park provides a space where Benetton promote the most valuable product – freedom. In collaboration with Tjeerd Haccou (http://www.spaceandmatter.nl) and Matthew Murphy.
The building maintains throughout its design a simple logic; space is provided where needed, (experiential) qualities are added where most desirable, and embellishments kept to the minimum. Three programmatic beams hover above a public space; the Benetton park. The first contains the main store, the second the offices and the third, an apartment level. The beams are contained within a net – providing solar shading and allowing a semi-public, mediated space between the occupants and the city. This space is the intermediary between the architectural and the urban. Operable windows, pivoting on vertical axes, allow user control of the microclimate and further blur the division between the building and the city. A single core – visible in the park – coheres the development. Its efficient positioning allows for minimum internal spans and optimizes the flexibility of internal layout due to the least possible columns.Green roofs retain rainwater and provide habitats for native plants and invertebrates.
In the same way that Benetton has asked the question of the human condition: “Is It Shared?” this variation is the question Benetton must ask of each architectural proposal. Does it – as a product – do more than simply clothe? The brief for retail units with offices and apartments above is not an uncommon one. This ‘stack’ is typical in almost every city around the globe. In this sense, the competition could be developed as an aesthetic exercise. Yet, Tehran is unlike other cities. The ‘rawness’ of seemingly unrelated architectural incidents is often accompanied by magnificent social and cultural richness. The merging of the ambition of Benetton with the day-to-day ambition of the city gave rise to two experiments. First, how can Benetton manifest itself in a constantly shifting metropolis. Second, how can an architecture exist that thrives with cultural and historic meaning.