Judges
Alireza
Taghaboni
Founder & CEO
,Nextoffice
Alireza Taghaboni, a practicing architect, painter, and PhD holder in architecture, founded Tehranbased Next Office in 2009. A frequent contributor to Iranian architecture and urbanism magazines and periodicals, he is a tutor and partner at the Contemporary Architects Association of Iran (CAAI), a private architecture institute in Tehran that offers an alternative education program.
While learning lessons from Iran’s history of architecture, Next Office aims to provide alternative architecture, responding to issues of contemporary Iran i.e. economic, sociopolitical, and cultural contexts as well as the climate conditions and peculiarities of each project’s site. The historical diagrams, of especially residential buildings in different parts of the country, are modified, transformed, and retranslate to address the aforementioned issues. One of Taghaboni’s most recognized projects, Sharifi‐ha house, with its revolving rooms, adapts to a shifting lifestyle and demonstrates a critical take on building regulations and zoning by‐laws. The practice’s work ranges from single‐family houses to residential, commercial, and mixed‐use large‐scale complexes, to urban master plans. Over the past decade, the practice has won several prestigious national and international awards for architecture. In 2018, Taghaboni was awarded the inaugural Royal Academy Dorfman award in recognition of his talent that "represents the future of architecture."