The AW competition jury session was held at Ava Platt in spring 2022. The jury brought together Homa Farjadi, Mohammad Majidi, and Rambod Eilkhani, alongside Saadi Maryami, CEO of AW Group, and Aref Baranian, the project’s strategy designer.
Homa Farjadi described the competition’s central question as what Tehran needs in order to improve living conditions, and what architecture and construction can offer as an alternative through a critical approach. In her account, this position creates opportunities for new typologies and spatial relationships in the city.
Mohammad Majidi noted that the participants had been selected carefully and represented deliberately different approaches. This diversity made the judging difficult, but he believed the process reached a strong result.
Rambod Eilkhani similarly emphasised the quality of all four teams. Each approached the subject from a different angle, and he identified that diversity of thought as an important contribution to architectural discourse.
The choice of venue formed part of the competition’s wider attention to consistency. Ava Platt, designed by Reza Daneshmir and Catherine Spiridonoff in Aghdasieh, Tehran, challenges familiar typologies of public, cultural, and commercial space.
The session took place on the eighth floor, known as Platform Eight: a transparent setting intended to support interaction, growth, and exchange within Iran’s contemporary cultural and artistic landscape.
