From City to Cell
Research - 2021 - Utrecht
The research approaches architecture as a medium of narrative, where space is not static but continually reinterpreted through memory, movement, and transformation. Inspired by phenomenological theories, the project explores how architecture can carry experiential and emotional weight while responding to the dynamic needs of the city.
Influenced by Foucault’s notion of heterotopia, the prison is reimagined as a space of contrast and overlap, where solitude coexists with collectivity, silence with dialogue, and history with contemporary life. Instead of fully converting or gentrifying the site, the design introduces a programmatic ambiguity: cultural events, educational activities, workshops, and quiet retreats coexist within the former cells and courtyards, now subtly redefined.
The design process employed methods of mapping, sequencing, and experiential reading, focusing on how users move through and perceive the site over time. Special attention was given to thresholds, light, materiality, and acoustics—treating the architecture as a living interface between body, memory, and space.
Ultimately, the project positions Wolvenplein not as a monument, but as a narrative structure—open to interpretation, reinvention, and appropriation by the city’s residents. It is an attempt to rethink what it means to “free” a space, not just physically, but emotionally and socially, by allowing its complexity to remain visible and active.
Here, silence is no longer surveillance—it is reflection
Location: Utrecht, NL
Project Year: 2021
Project Team: Sudeh Akhondi - Mehdi Mousavinasab
