Global Inspirations: The House of 40 Knots

While persian carpets are world renowned, bricks also have a strong relationship with Iranian historical architecture. In this building, ‘the house of 40 knots’ by Habibeh Madjdabadi and Alireza Mashhadimirza, the two entities are fused into a contemporary façade that appears as a collection of intricately interwoven modules.

In textile factories, two people work together to make a carpet – one reads the instructions while the other sits behind the scaffold and makes the braids. The architects elaborate by saying, ‘the one who reads the instruction does not necessarily know how to knit. she reads the instructions, usually with a rhythm, and like a song: two reds, a yellow below, two blue . . . those instructions are usually drawn on checkered papers.’

The handmade exterior of this residence is also made using a similar system. One craftsman reads and the other places raised, filler, and hollow bricks in corresponding supporting bars between L profiles. Due to this technique, there is no need for phase drawings and the construction sequence can be performed through a series of simple, localized labors. Workers can lay down the bricks row by row without having to understand the concept of whole façade.