GIRIH BRICK [Landscape Installation]
February 2016

GIRIH BRICK is an interplay of contradiction, the experimentation of using traditional construction material and introducing a new form of representation. This landscape installation consisting of 4500 bricks spanning over 10 meters was constructed by a group of architecture students through a form finding design process directed by Farnaz Fattahi.

“GIRIH BRICK” Landscape Installation is an exploration on the interconnection of the geometric “Girih” system pattern with modular brick laying techniques. Girih is a decorative pattern used in traditional Iranian architecture consisting of geometric lines that form an interlaced lattice of infinite pattern.

The challenge was to use the interplay of Girih pattern as the forms horizontal platform with the brick laying patterns to form a landscape installation with seating arrangements. The installation plane is formed by the created interconnections between the selected Girih pattern points. This Girih system has the potential to be connected simultaneously from its intersections to multiple points, therefore regulating additional lines to extract various geometrical possibilities. The optimum geometric form was chosen from numerous results that best served the required functionality.

The concept of this form is to utilize Bricks as natural building component derived from nature coinciding with the adjacent landscape. The form rises from the landscape with a single brick. As the form emerges brick by brick from the ground, simultaneously the adjacent landscape extends onto the form. The bricks grow into a continuous modular form with the organic identity of green life merging through these modules giving life to the lifeless entity. The two entities join and intersect with one another as the landscape breeds into the modular form, thus emerging an architecture that is constantly alive.

This modular form gradually alters in topography and functionality as more modules are added vertically and horizontally moving onto the designed platform and resulting in multiple surface diversions. The flexibility of patterns driven from the modular entity of the brick allows this structure to transform, forming a vertical surface entwined with a seating plane transforming into a porous wall which twists and turns into a planter surface sloping back to a seating plane. The applied modular brick pattern transforms along the structure illustrating the dynamic play of light and shade through the form.

This installation contemplates Brick as a traditional material used in Iranian architecture for centuries and challenges its customary functionality. An Unconventional use of a traditional component is used to create a contemporary structure. By viewing bricks as modules students experimented with various brick laying techniques enabling the formation of modern geometries. The objective of the manipulation of this traditional element within the horizontal and vertical planes is an attempt to pursue the creation of new possibilities of unconventional compositions.

Project Location: Khayyam University, Mashhad, Iran
Project director: Farnaz Fattahi (Master of Digital Architecture- UTS) - Architecture lecturer

Student Team: Yekta Noee/ Reza Sahni/ Ghasem Barbari/ Zahra Salimpour/ Rozita Jalilian/ Zohreh Ahmadian / Reza Pishevar/ Fatemeh Salamat/ Mahnaz Rahmani/ Minoush Esfandiari/ Delaram Gazrani / Naeem Rasouli/ Helia Asani/ Mahdieh Azhdari/ Saba Sadat/ Atefeh Sarvarzadeh/ Leila Pahlevanzadeh/ Arash arfae/ Atena Charmeh/ Zahra Sadathozzeini/ Fatemeh Hasanzadeh/ Razieh Khavari/ Mahla Aboata/ Farshid Faraji/ Ahmad Zare

Structural Consultant: Ali Mohebali
Girih image reference: Evolution of Islamic geometric patterns - Faculty of Built Environment, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia