Doctor of Architecture

Personal Statement
Architecture has always been a professional ambition that I aspire to. It alone is a passion that resonates within me with desire that extends beyond any ordinary career path, as it does with anybody who truly loves the study and practice of the arts. A feeling like a great purpose that impels me all the time to be in an effort on that.
As I remember, I have always been involved with engineering and art because my father is an Electrical Engineer and my mother is a Musician. I started painting at a very early age, when I was just five years old, and mostly used watercolor in my paintings and performed these on newspapers using screaming colors. Then I tried to design my room with those scraps in my own way. My mother sometimes presented my paintings to her professor, who believed I would be an artist in future because of the peculiar style that I applied to my works. Besides painting, I started playing the santoor, an Iranian instrument, when I was ten years old. Also, I had some performance in “Playing Iranian instrument in a team”. As a senior high school student, I was introduced with especial physics and mathematics courses like Solid geometry, Visual Geometry, Statics, Dynamics, etc. I was a teacher assistant to help some students in mathematics. Finally, I got my diploma with an average of GPA 17.26/20 in the field of mathematics and physics.
My primary idea in architecture was; from the time when, I decided to visit some historical buildings in Iran, every time I entered each of these places I had a feeling like a sense of a dignity, peace, and a feeling like that I was in my home; which made me curious about the origins of these feelings. To fully realize this goal, I needed to begin by attaining a Bachelor's degree in architecture; however, I did not pursue an architecture degree alone. As I started my bachelor degree, I decided to apply my passion and sense that I experienced in that particular design which created a unique style in most of my designs.
I remember being told in the second year of Bachelor's courses, by one of my professors, "your projects don’t need to be named because all of them is designed in a peculiar way that will hold your signature."
It was from my third year of architectural studies that I began to adopt an exceptional approach to my design process. In this phase, I started to eliminate all boundaries between buildings’ interior and exterior, and also create a building with its own special personality. I mostly considered the environment of the building during the designing process and also linked it to the interior plan; hence, it looks an integrated complex as whole.
Choosing my bachelor’s thesis coined with my mother’s graduation from master of music. The elements that she emphasized in surveying, to find a proper building to establish a music institute, motivated me to choose my thesis as a “house of music”. The concept of the project contained two separate buildings: one of them resembling an instrument like a trumpet and the other represented the sounds of the trumpet which voiced the music and its reflection of the society. In designing process considering the buildings which presented themselves, and all the parts of the site and interiors were designed in different levels, which were connected together with corridors, a bridge and some stairs from inside. Regarding this connection, a mirror pool was set with a special angle between the two parts of the buildings which created a further connection between the sky and the earth in that particular area. Receiving a bachelor's degree with an average of GPA 15.27/20 and also working as a trainee in Design and Consulting Services company in the field of designing and cartography completed my pursuit of engineering and allowed me to use the knowledge I gained in my undergraduate education to better be informed in architecture, which I produced in my future academic projects and professional practices. Moving forward, I hope to follow my primary goal and to further broaden my interests and intellectual background in design.
Although my study in Bachelor in the case of “Finding most important factors that are origin of emerging the special sense from the ancient buildings” were useful in that case, it couldn’t make me satisfied; therefore, I decided to expand it during my graduate education. I have passed one year as the Pre-Master education with additional courses for preparation and two years as the regular program for master degree in Yerevan, Armenia. The thesis that I chose in this section was “Designing a mini city based on the ancient Iranian architectural style and modernize it in new exposure way.”
As I started to survey in ancient Iranian architectural style and comparing it with existing buildings, some questions came to my mind: How could our ancestors have made such huge buildings without any technology and academic knowledge? What is it that today, with so much progress in technology and high rate of progress in academic education we cannot create such magnificence? Increasing rate of diseases that are difficult to be treated, because of the pollution and high stress, which my father was one who is suffering, was another factor that made me intend to design this mini city. So in that case, I decided to identify a new definition of modern style which considers some elements of ancient Iranian in designing of the buildings with the newest technology and requirements of people in exist decade. Regarding most of my project’s designs, which trying to create a combination between sites and buildings, I considered a form of the site as “Farvahar” which is a symbol of Ariya, Iran. In designing process, each part of the “Farvahar” is conceptualized by each building on the site. The theory indicates every building is designed to create more peace for people and for the nature. Achieving this goal, I considered some ancient Iranian elements such as introversion, native material, vestibule, etc. trying to adapt them to the present decade to the inspiring Iranian soil in that special area.
After graduating with a master’s degree in Yerevan, Armenia in 2012, by an average of GPA 17.95/20, I came back to Iran, worked as an engineer supervisor in “Iranian Organization for Engineering Order of Building Province Department” and also I am employed in some universities as a lecturer in Mazandaran, Iran.
My graduate and undergraduate education and the knowledge gained therein, and also some practical training experiences raise new questions in architecture and design which demand attention and answers. My interest lies in architectural design, environmental design, sustainable design, urban design and their reflection on each other in design processes. Architecture and Environmental design are innately related to one another, and at any advanced level, a professional cannot consider one without the other. With that in mind, how will new technologies and ancient architectural style’s elements influence on modern architecture and design? And how can we combine the elements of architecture in a way that will cause the emergence of the sense of peace in people? And also how can we use nature as a source in the process of design? These questions are what I seek to explore in my PhD studies.
Your university, with its forward-thinking attitude, interest in interdisciplinary and progressive education, is my choice as the source of further intellectual and practical development. The school provides cutting-edge technology, facilities, and resources that are going to be powerful tools through my PhD education, development, and architectural design. I intend to develop and work symbiotically with the school in the department of architecture under supervision of professor “XX” founder and president of the XX, who accepted me, to pursue my PhD under his supervision and kindly helping me to explore the potentials of designing in architecture and creating new buildings while maintaining the traditions of architecture. It is my aspiration to gain knowledge and provide the school with a mind that fears not the questions, but the hesitation to look for the answers.
The architecture along with engineering, landscape, and environment from my academic background will form the architecture of my professional future. The pursuit of innovation and integration of the art and science will not cease, ultimately achieving a better architecture for all.