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Other Projects by L.E.D Architects
ZARJOOB
Firm
STATUS
Concept
SIZE
1,000,000 +
BUDGET
$500K - 1M
Zarjoob Landscape Project: Reconnecting Rasht with its Natural and Historical Identity
Rasht, the vibrant capital of Gilan Province, is a city historically known for its silk industry, lush greenery, and rich cultural identity. Yet today, the Zarjoob River, once a natural artery of the city, lies neglected—polluted, obscured, and disconnected from the urban experience. The Zarjoob Landscape Project aims to reverse this condition by re-integrating the river into the social, ecological, and economic life of the city.
This initiative reimagines the Zarjoob corridor as a linear civic spine that not only restores the environmental integrity of the river but also activates it as a new cultural and economic hub. The project’s mission is fourfold: to revive the historical and ecological memory of the river, to clean and regenerate its polluted bed, to establish vibrant spaces for citizens and tourists alike, and to define a contemporary urban brand for Rasht built around the river's revitalization.
________________________________________
1. Rediscovering the Historical and Ecological Memory of Zarjoob
For over a millennium, references to Rasht and its surroundings have appeared in historical texts. During the Safavid period, Zarjoob was a site of agricultural and trade vitality, particularly in the silk industry. The area east of the river—once filled with mulberry groves and silkworm farms—was a thriving ecological and economic zone. The remnants of this era can still be traced in the historical neighborhoods of Pirbazar and Bagherabad.
This legacy provides a strong foundation for design. Through landscape architecture that references traditional structures such as kotams and telambars, the project proposes a re-imagining of public space that blends cultural memory with ecological function.
________________________________________
2. Cleaning and Detoxifying the Riverbed
The current state of Zarjoob as a wastewater channel severely undermines its potential. The immediate plan involves a phased cleanup strategy:
• Short-term: Construction of an underground channel to divert domestic, industrial, and hospital waste from the visible streambed, using natural filtration and organic AF-layer filters to purify the flow.
• Mid-term: Elimination of all direct waste outflows into the river, achieved through district-by-district upgrades to the wastewater infrastructure.
• Long-term: Complete ecological rehabilitation, turning the Zarjoob into a clean, navigable, and biodiverse urban waterway.
In tandem, educational initiatives will teach local communities—especially children—the importance of water stewardship and environmental responsibility.
________________________________________
3. Creating New Urban and Tourist Activity Hubs
The Zarjoob zone encompasses approximately 55 hectares—20 hectares larger than Tehran’s Mellat Park. However, unlike Mellat Park, this vast area has little to no public recognition or utility. The project seeks to change that by transforming the riverside into a sequence of public spaces, including:
• Floating markets inspired by Rasht’s bazaar heritage
• Interactive riverside cafés and galleries that encourage community gathering
• Workshops for traditional carriage-making and other heritage crafts
• Open-air theaters and event spaces for local performances and festivals
Public infrastructure like widened walkways, pedestrian bridges, and refurbished commercial facades will invite both residents and visitors into the heart of this new urban experience.
________________________________________
4. Defining an Urban Brand and Event Calendar for Rasht
At the core of this transformation lies the branding of Rasht not just as a provincial capital, but as a “river city”—a destination of ecological revival and cultural depth. The branding effort includes:
• Developing a mobile app that provides updates on events, historical insights, and visitor information
• Installing “time browsers” (augmented reality viewers) on key bridges to show historical overlays
• Creating an annual content-based calendar that highlights events around:
o Birthdays of Rasht’s cultural figures
o National and local holidays
o Seasonal ecological transitions (e.g., Nowruz at the riverside)
o Community-led festivals and educational initiatives
This integrated branding and events strategy ensures that Rasht becomes known both domestically and internationally for its commitment to cultural authenticity, ecological innovation, and community-driven urbanism.
________________________________________
5. A Participatory and Phased Implementation Plan
Recognizing the financial and administrative constraints of full-scale redevelopment, the project proposes a three-phase implementation:
1. Short-term (1–2 years): Low-cost, high-impact activations such as temporary art installations, pop-up markets, and waste diversion prototypes.
2. Mid-term (3–5 years): Infrastructure upgrades, bridge redesigns, and zoning modifications that promote public and commercial interaction with the river.
3. Long-term (6+ years): Full restoration of the river’s ecology and completion of the linear park, supported by sustained local engagement.
Local shopkeepers, schoolyards, and underutilized residential lots along the river will be reprogrammed into publicly accessible nodes of activity—with locals becoming both custodians and beneficiaries.
________________________________________
6. Economic Inclusion and Local Empowerment
A successful landscape project is not just about design; it’s about people. This initiative aims to create tangible economic benefits for local residents through:
• Micro-business grants for riverside cafés and craft kiosks
• Training programs in heritage restoration, event organization, and urban ecology
• Tourism revenue redirected into local schools, healthcare, and neighborhood improvement
• Public-private partnerships for long-term maintenance and activation
By ensuring that the gains of development are equitably distributed, the project builds long-term community trust and resilience.
________________________________________
Conclusion: A River Reimagined, A City Reborn
The Zarjoob Landscape Project is not simply about cleaning a river—it is about redefining Rasht’s identity through its most neglected yet powerful natural element. By weaving together history, ecology, community, and economy, the initiative creates a holistic model of urban transformation.
Zarjoob, once buried under pollution and indifference, becomes the heartbeat of a new Rasht—one that honors its past, embraces its people, and builds its future on the flow of life itself.
Design Vision
The Zarjoob Landscape Corridor envisions a bold re-imagining of Rasht’s central river as a continuous civic spine—one that reclaims lost urban memory, restores ecological health, and establishes a living framework for community life, public culture, and local economy.
Rather than treating the river as a linear infrastructural problem, the project transforms it into a living cultural landscape: a hybrid of memory and modernity, history and ecology, everyday life and celebration.
________________________________________
Design Narrative
The city of Rasht once grew in intimate dialogue with the Zarjoob River. From silk production to daily washing rituals, from floating markets to bridge-centered neighborhoods, the river functioned as a lifeline—socially, economically, and symbolically. Over time, industrialization, pollution, and fragmented planning erased this connection.
This project is an act of spatial storytelling and ecological restoration. It reconnects the city to its river and its citizens to their forgotten narratives. It proposes a new linear structure that weaves together fragmented neighborhoods, introduces flexible spaces for cultural exchange, and empowers the local population through economic integration.
________________________________________
Design Principles
1. Ecological Regeneration:
Cleanse the river through engineered and organic filtration strategies while restoring riparian ecologies. Create soft edges with native vegetation, flood-tolerant zones, and biodiversity corridors.
2. Urban Reconnection:
Reconnect neighborhoods and disconnected riverbanks through new pedestrian bridges, activated riverfronts, and porous urban blocks that dissolve rigid boundaries.
3. Memory and Identity:
Interpret and spatialize the lost urban heritage through the language of form, material, and narrative. Reintroduce local typologies (e.g. kotam, telambar) into public structures, pavilions, and marketplaces.
4. Public Life and Use:
Provide inclusive, layered public spaces—from playgrounds and riverfront promenades to floating markets and performance stages—promoting civic engagement across ages and social groups.
5. Civic Infrastructure:
Introduce multifunctional surfaces, adaptive reuse of derelict plots, and active frontage strategies to foster economic participation and local stewardship.
6. Temporal and Event-Based Design:
Develop a content-driven calendar of public events—seasonal festivals, commemorative days, and citizen-led celebrations—that animates the river as a stage for public life.
________________________________________
Spatial Strategy
The river corridor is divided into thematic zones based on the social and ecological character of each stretch:
• Memory Zone: At the historical bridges and traditional neighborhoods, the project revives past rituals and patterns of use.
• Ecology Zone: Where natural growth dominates, riparian buffers and floating wetlands are introduced.
• Civic Zone: At major urban intersections, large-scale gathering spaces, amphitheaters, and cultural pavilions anchor the riverfront.
• Creative Zone: Derelict lots become incubators for local arts, crafts, and youth-driven enterprises.
________________________________________
Material and Aesthetic Language
Inspired by Rasht’s vernacular architecture, the material palette uses brick, wood, and oxidized steel in warm, muted tones. Design elements such as colonnades, pitched roofs, and filtered light echo the typologies of Rasht's traditional bazaars and courtyard houses. The project is sensory: mist, sound, shadow, and vegetation all act as design mediums.
________________________________________
Socio-Economic Empowerment
Public space becomes a platform for local entrepreneurship. Micro-kiosks, cooperative-run cafés, riverside galleries, and traditional carriage workshops offer revenue streams for local families. Displaced or disinvested households are reintegrated through public-private partnerships and training programs.
________________________________________
Technology and Smart Layers
Augmented reality "Time Viewers" installed on bridges offer immersive glimpses into the city’s past. A mobile app provides real-time updates on events, ecology, and public services, forming a smart urban interface between people and place.
________________________________________
A River Reclaimed, A City Reimagined
The Zarjoob Landscape Corridor is more than a beautification project—it is a structural and symbolic reclaiming of the city. It posits a Rasht that is proud of its heritage, committed to its ecology, and inclusive in its civic culture. It brings water, memory, and public life into harmony—offering a resilient and poetic model for Iranian cities facing similar crises.
Rasht, the vibrant capital of Gilan Province, is a city historically known for its silk industry, lush greenery, and rich cultural identity. Yet today, the Zarjoob River, once a natural artery of the city, lies neglected—polluted, obscured, and disconnected from the urban experience. The Zarjoob Landscape Project aims to reverse this condition by re-integrating the river into the social, ecological, and economic life of the city.
This initiative reimagines the Zarjoob corridor as a linear civic spine that not only restores the environmental integrity of the river but also activates it as a new cultural and economic hub. The project’s mission is fourfold: to revive the historical and ecological memory of the river, to clean and regenerate its polluted bed, to establish vibrant spaces for citizens and tourists alike, and to define a contemporary urban brand for Rasht built around the river's revitalization.
________________________________________
1. Rediscovering the Historical and Ecological Memory of Zarjoob
For over a millennium, references to Rasht and its surroundings have appeared in historical texts. During the Safavid period, Zarjoob was a site of agricultural and trade vitality, particularly in the silk industry. The area east of the river—once filled with mulberry groves and silkworm farms—was a thriving ecological and economic zone. The remnants of this era can still be traced in the historical neighborhoods of Pirbazar and Bagherabad.
This legacy provides a strong foundation for design. Through landscape architecture that references traditional structures such as kotams and telambars, the project proposes a re-imagining of public space that blends cultural memory with ecological function.
________________________________________
2. Cleaning and Detoxifying the Riverbed
The current state of Zarjoob as a wastewater channel severely undermines its potential. The immediate plan involves a phased cleanup strategy:
• Short-term: Construction of an underground channel to divert domestic, industrial, and hospital waste from the visible streambed, using natural filtration and organic AF-layer filters to purify the flow.
• Mid-term: Elimination of all direct waste outflows into the river, achieved through district-by-district upgrades to the wastewater infrastructure.
• Long-term: Complete ecological rehabilitation, turning the Zarjoob into a clean, navigable, and biodiverse urban waterway.
In tandem, educational initiatives will teach local communities—especially children—the importance of water stewardship and environmental responsibility.
________________________________________
3. Creating New Urban and Tourist Activity Hubs
The Zarjoob zone encompasses approximately 55 hectares—20 hectares larger than Tehran’s Mellat Park. However, unlike Mellat Park, this vast area has little to no public recognition or utility. The project seeks to change that by transforming the riverside into a sequence of public spaces, including:
• Floating markets inspired by Rasht’s bazaar heritage
• Interactive riverside cafés and galleries that encourage community gathering
• Workshops for traditional carriage-making and other heritage crafts
• Open-air theaters and event spaces for local performances and festivals
Public infrastructure like widened walkways, pedestrian bridges, and refurbished commercial facades will invite both residents and visitors into the heart of this new urban experience.
________________________________________
4. Defining an Urban Brand and Event Calendar for Rasht
At the core of this transformation lies the branding of Rasht not just as a provincial capital, but as a “river city”—a destination of ecological revival and cultural depth. The branding effort includes:
• Developing a mobile app that provides updates on events, historical insights, and visitor information
• Installing “time browsers” (augmented reality viewers) on key bridges to show historical overlays
• Creating an annual content-based calendar that highlights events around:
o Birthdays of Rasht’s cultural figures
o National and local holidays
o Seasonal ecological transitions (e.g., Nowruz at the riverside)
o Community-led festivals and educational initiatives
This integrated branding and events strategy ensures that Rasht becomes known both domestically and internationally for its commitment to cultural authenticity, ecological innovation, and community-driven urbanism.
________________________________________
5. A Participatory and Phased Implementation Plan
Recognizing the financial and administrative constraints of full-scale redevelopment, the project proposes a three-phase implementation:
1. Short-term (1–2 years): Low-cost, high-impact activations such as temporary art installations, pop-up markets, and waste diversion prototypes.
2. Mid-term (3–5 years): Infrastructure upgrades, bridge redesigns, and zoning modifications that promote public and commercial interaction with the river.
3. Long-term (6+ years): Full restoration of the river’s ecology and completion of the linear park, supported by sustained local engagement.
Local shopkeepers, schoolyards, and underutilized residential lots along the river will be reprogrammed into publicly accessible nodes of activity—with locals becoming both custodians and beneficiaries.
________________________________________
6. Economic Inclusion and Local Empowerment
A successful landscape project is not just about design; it’s about people. This initiative aims to create tangible economic benefits for local residents through:
• Micro-business grants for riverside cafés and craft kiosks
• Training programs in heritage restoration, event organization, and urban ecology
• Tourism revenue redirected into local schools, healthcare, and neighborhood improvement
• Public-private partnerships for long-term maintenance and activation
By ensuring that the gains of development are equitably distributed, the project builds long-term community trust and resilience.
________________________________________
Conclusion: A River Reimagined, A City Reborn
The Zarjoob Landscape Project is not simply about cleaning a river—it is about redefining Rasht’s identity through its most neglected yet powerful natural element. By weaving together history, ecology, community, and economy, the initiative creates a holistic model of urban transformation.
Zarjoob, once buried under pollution and indifference, becomes the heartbeat of a new Rasht—one that honors its past, embraces its people, and builds its future on the flow of life itself.
Design Vision
The Zarjoob Landscape Corridor envisions a bold re-imagining of Rasht’s central river as a continuous civic spine—one that reclaims lost urban memory, restores ecological health, and establishes a living framework for community life, public culture, and local economy.
Rather than treating the river as a linear infrastructural problem, the project transforms it into a living cultural landscape: a hybrid of memory and modernity, history and ecology, everyday life and celebration.
________________________________________
Design Narrative
The city of Rasht once grew in intimate dialogue with the Zarjoob River. From silk production to daily washing rituals, from floating markets to bridge-centered neighborhoods, the river functioned as a lifeline—socially, economically, and symbolically. Over time, industrialization, pollution, and fragmented planning erased this connection.
This project is an act of spatial storytelling and ecological restoration. It reconnects the city to its river and its citizens to their forgotten narratives. It proposes a new linear structure that weaves together fragmented neighborhoods, introduces flexible spaces for cultural exchange, and empowers the local population through economic integration.
________________________________________
Design Principles
1. Ecological Regeneration:
Cleanse the river through engineered and organic filtration strategies while restoring riparian ecologies. Create soft edges with native vegetation, flood-tolerant zones, and biodiversity corridors.
2. Urban Reconnection:
Reconnect neighborhoods and disconnected riverbanks through new pedestrian bridges, activated riverfronts, and porous urban blocks that dissolve rigid boundaries.
3. Memory and Identity:
Interpret and spatialize the lost urban heritage through the language of form, material, and narrative. Reintroduce local typologies (e.g. kotam, telambar) into public structures, pavilions, and marketplaces.
4. Public Life and Use:
Provide inclusive, layered public spaces—from playgrounds and riverfront promenades to floating markets and performance stages—promoting civic engagement across ages and social groups.
5. Civic Infrastructure:
Introduce multifunctional surfaces, adaptive reuse of derelict plots, and active frontage strategies to foster economic participation and local stewardship.
6. Temporal and Event-Based Design:
Develop a content-driven calendar of public events—seasonal festivals, commemorative days, and citizen-led celebrations—that animates the river as a stage for public life.
________________________________________
Spatial Strategy
The river corridor is divided into thematic zones based on the social and ecological character of each stretch:
• Memory Zone: At the historical bridges and traditional neighborhoods, the project revives past rituals and patterns of use.
• Ecology Zone: Where natural growth dominates, riparian buffers and floating wetlands are introduced.
• Civic Zone: At major urban intersections, large-scale gathering spaces, amphitheaters, and cultural pavilions anchor the riverfront.
• Creative Zone: Derelict lots become incubators for local arts, crafts, and youth-driven enterprises.
________________________________________
Material and Aesthetic Language
Inspired by Rasht’s vernacular architecture, the material palette uses brick, wood, and oxidized steel in warm, muted tones. Design elements such as colonnades, pitched roofs, and filtered light echo the typologies of Rasht's traditional bazaars and courtyard houses. The project is sensory: mist, sound, shadow, and vegetation all act as design mediums.
________________________________________
Socio-Economic Empowerment
Public space becomes a platform for local entrepreneurship. Micro-kiosks, cooperative-run cafés, riverside galleries, and traditional carriage workshops offer revenue streams for local families. Displaced or disinvested households are reintegrated through public-private partnerships and training programs.
________________________________________
Technology and Smart Layers
Augmented reality "Time Viewers" installed on bridges offer immersive glimpses into the city’s past. A mobile app provides real-time updates on events, ecology, and public services, forming a smart urban interface between people and place.
________________________________________
A River Reclaimed, A City Reimagined
The Zarjoob Landscape Corridor is more than a beautification project—it is a structural and symbolic reclaiming of the city. It posits a Rasht that is proud of its heritage, committed to its ecology, and inclusive in its civic culture. It brings water, memory, and public life into harmony—offering a resilient and poetic model for Iranian cities facing similar crises.
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