Architectural Practice

II. Parda-Diwar

Figure 1
Plan

Figure 2
Kitchen – Living Room (behind the Veil)

Figure 3
Living Room

Figure 4
Living Room – Kitchen – Hallway

Figure 5
Living Room – Bedroom

Figure 6
Living Room – Study/Library

Figure 7
Study/Library

Figure 8
Study/Library – Bedroom

Figure 9
Bedroom – Living Room

Figure 10
Bedroom – Study/Library

Figure 11
Ephesian Diana (Bedroom)

Figure 12
Central Partition
(Living Room – Study/Library)

Parda. A veil, curtain, tapestry, caul, film, membrane; a partition between two rooms; the walls of a tent; a fence or wall for dividing fields; a coating, a layer, a lamina; the sky; a plait, fold; a musical tone or sound, a note; a melody; the key of an organ, harpsichord, or similar instrument; frets or divisions upon the neck or finger-board of a guitar or lute; modesty; an act of a play.
Diwar. A wall; a species of juniper yielding milk.

Steingass, Francis Joseph. A Comprehensive Persian-English dictionary, including the Arabic words and phrases to be met with in Persian literature.
London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1892.

The Parda-Diwar flat is situated in a building originally intended to be a hospital. However, only three above-ground levels were constructed before the economic downturn of the 1990s halted construction. Building work resumed in the early 2010s, with the function changing to residential use.

The flat is located on the second floor, in the section built in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This means the concrete elements—columns, beams and floor slabs—were prefabricated and installed in a distinctly Soviet manner. This inherited austerity has informed the project's materiality.

Another key factor influenced the spatial design. The initial 53 square metre space contained a solitary column in the middle and only two modest windows. The client, being a scholar in his fifties who works primarily from home, emphasised the study/library and living room, while the kitchen and bedroom were considered secondary.

A U-shaped enfilade of rooms begins in the hallway (with an adjacent water closet), followed by a kitchen, living room, study with library, bedroom and en-suite bathroom. The 'mother-column' at the centre acts as the pivot around which the space revolves. The column also establishes a secondary axis within the bedroom and kitchen spaces, giving a quasi-semantic quality to the kitchen layout (with oven and stove in the centre, referencing a hearth) and creating a serene yet rigorous bedroom with a cross formed by the column and transom windows.

Transom windows open the bedroom towards the kitchen and studio, allowing reflected sunlight to enter in the morning. In the evening, the bedroom becomes a lantern, softly illuminating all adjacent rooms. The living room and studio are connected yet divided by a wooden partition with transom windows above and passages on either side.

The austere materiality is addressed with refined simplicity. Walls are plastered and finished in wax, while original concrete elements are finished in white wax. White cotton veils serve as both window curtains and subtle partitions between the kitchen and adjacent spaces. Floors feature white and grey ceramic tiles and oak floorboards. Transom windows, partitions and bookshelves are crafted from pine planks and battens, larch furniture board and birch plywood.

Designed with Anastasia Belinskaya

Contractor: Konstantin Arkhipov

Photography: Anton Gorlenko

Oyat Shukurov

Architectural Practice

II. Parda-Diwar