SINA MOSTAFAVI
PROJECT
SOFTSTONE Office Building | SETUParchitecture
Softstone is a mid-rise building located in the city center of a developing metropolitan area. Urban densification and land-use changes are resulting in proximities of existing low-rise residential blocks with mid to high-rise offices or commercials. Within this context, Softstone introduces an alternative architectural solution for a mid-rise office project built with local stone. The monolithic volume is constructed of pre-crafted slabs of varying sizes that are supported with pre-fabricated folded metal plates, which then together are dry-assembled on-site. Soft transitions from small to large components create curved surfaces out of the hard stone. The focal points of these gradients define the entrances and openings, morph the building skin, adjust the skyline, and connect the backyard landscape to the staircase all the way to the rooftop.
Specifications
Office: SETUParchitecture studio
Architect In Charge: Sina Mostafavi
Construction Manager: Alireza Salami
Client: Majid Ghavifekr
Photo: Parham Taghioff
Timeline
Design date: 2014-17
Construction date: 2015-18
Awards
1st prize A+ Awards 2020, Architizer
2A Euro Asia Continental Awards, IAAC Barcelona
BIOGRAPHY
Sina Mostafavi is a practicing architect, researcher, and educator with expertise in computational design and architectural robotics. He is the founder of award-winning studio SETUParchitecture, a firm that provides consultancy for innovative design solutions to construction processes.
He teaches and leads design studios at Delft University of Technology and Dessau International Graduate School of Architecture (DIA) at Bauhaus, where he is also the initiator and director of DARS hub, a unit that focuses on Design Systems and Architectural Robotics to deliver interdisciplinary design research projects. He is a senior researcher at TU Delft, where he has been the manager and co initiator of the Robotic Building Lab at Hyperbody group of TU Delft. He has led international workshops such as InDeSem 2015-re.craft, SimAUD 2018 at Delft, and IASS2015 at Amsterdam. As a Ph.D. and as a senior researcher at TU Delft, he has focused since 2011 on development and application of design computation to robotic production of hybrid material systems, using multimode subtractive-additive robotic production methods.
He has lectured internationally and has been a member of the scientific committees of various journals and conferences such as eCAADe and ACADIA. The results of his work are published and presented in books, journals and conferences, such as eCAADe 2013 in Delft, Algorithms and Actualization at AA London, eCAADe 2014 in New Castle, ACADIA in Los Angeles, eCAADe 2015 in Vienna, ACADIA in Cincinnati, Rob|Arch 2016 in Sydney, Rob|Arch 2018 in ETH Zurich, KNAW Amsterdam, Digital Knowledge in Paris Malaquais, chapters in Towards a Robotic Architecture book, and in Mutations-creations, Imprimer-le-Monde, Centre Pompidou.
His Architectural Design projects have received several awards and nominations such as First prize in Architizer A+ Awards 2020 and Second prize in 2A Continental Euro Asia Award 2018 in IAAC Barcelona for Softstone office Building. His architectural prototypes and works have been featured at international exhibitions, such as construction week in Utrecht, V2 gallery-institute for unstable media of Rotterdam, synthetic Exhibition in Le Mans Lillie, NAi in Rotterdam, and Print the World Exposition in Centre Pompidou Paris.
