Dr. Shokoufeh Zaheri: architecture at the scale of experience

Shokoufeh Zaheri is an architect and co-founder who has helped shape Azhianeh from its beginning. Within the shared practice, attention to interiors, materials and detail brings architecture closer to human experience: how a place is seen and touched, how light changes and how private and shared life meet. These qualities may be less conspicuous in an overall image, but are encountered every day.

Their collaboration is not a division between “technical” and “artistic” work. A project develops through discussion and revision, from its position on the site to the detail of a threshold. Research into architecture, tourism and natural settings matters when an understanding of place changes a design decision.

In this approach, interior design continues the architecture of the building. A window’s relationship to seating, the distance from entry to private space, the meeting of floor and wall and the way light falls on materials can each change the experience of a room. Attention to detail extends beyond an attractive surface to touch, durability, cleaning and ease of use. The quality of a home or retreat emerges in these close relationships, which may be less visible in an overall image but are encountered every day.

In hotel, retreat and tourism design, this attention to experience is accompanied by an understanding of the setting. Arrival, places to pause, room privacy and the landscape relationship belong alongside servicing and maintenance. Shokoufeh Zaheri’s collaboration at Azhianeh forms part of this continuing dialogue between practical needs and architectural intention, from the first scheme to material and detail reviews. A project’s identity develops through the relationship between decisions at different scales.

Today the practice spans architectural design, investment, development and delivery. The scope of responsibility is defined for each residential tower, hotel, villa or tourism project. What connects them is a continuous view of spatial programme, construction, resources and operation.