IKIA 3 & 4 Star Hotel

As first airport hotel in Iran, IKIA 3 & 4 Star hotel is developed on a land of 23’000 m2 opposite main passenger terminal of Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport as a part of newly developed airport cities positioned 35 km to southwest of Tehran.

Hotel is designed as a cluster of a 3-Star hotel with 196 rooms and a 4-Star hotel with 296 rooms making total area of 55’000 m2, with common service areas, but separated guest and public areas. The public areas are connected through a corridor linking lobbies. Building has 12 levels: 2 basements for parking, service, and back of house areas; 2 levels for public areas, including lobbies, 3 restaurants, coffee shops, ballroom, meeting rooms, crew lounge, playground, and men & women health-centres; a mezzanine for service and admin areas; and 7 guest floors. Guestrooms are designed as per standards of an international hospitality group.

At first glance design is emergence of colours in Iran’s architecture. Designer, courageously overpasses conventional use of neutral colours in decades of Iranian contemporary architecture and challenges viewer’s eyes by sharp green, purple, red, and yellow colours, starting a new episode of colour melange in architecture.

Looking closer, building is designer’s manifest. Concerned about vitality and afraid of turning into a swamp she brings shape, form, and light into a frenzied dance. The elements are merged in their dance leaving no sign of lethargy in building. The floral motives of Persian carpets tend to move and ascend around pole of light towards the sky.

Philosophy of unity and diversity is artfully impressed. Each part of building has its exclusive function-based design; yet all diverse areas are merged like knots of an Iranian carpet to form a body, a journey from complexity of mysterious Iranian architecture to transparency of the modern architecture.