TWO CONES AND A WELL
Photographs: Mohammad Hassan Ettefagh - Babak Abnar
Kuhsar Alborz
Year: 2025
The history of bathing is a story of shared spaces, held beneath the vaulted roofs of public baths or along the banks of natural water bodies, once flowing through the heart of the commons, entwined with cultural rites and the slow pulse of the natural world. Drawing from this lineage, this project, an aquatic landscape, seeks to stir what has long lain dormant, reimagining the act of communal immersion for the present day.
Conceived as an intimate addition to a house, it engages in a dialogue with the lineage of bathing architecture, seeking to reinterpret it.
This cyclical ritual is reimagined by introducing a vertical circulation, stacking spaces and functions at varying elevations that, in the past, would have been arranged side by side on a flat horizontal plane.
Tucked into the corner of a backyard in a small town west of Tehran, this building stands as a gentle resonance of these social waterscapes and lets the bodies get close to the natural elements.
At the lowest level, carved into the earth, lies the Water Level, a basin for full immersion in hot or cold water. Rising above it, the Fire Level glows for the colder seasons. Higher still, is the Air Level, a concrete platform, storing the day’s warmth and, in the hotter months, offering a place to dry beneath the open sky. At the topmost level, the Sauna is heated from below by fire, from above by the sun, and from within by a small electric heater. Together, these strata complete a circular journey, reviving the timeless ritual of bathing in an unending cycle.
Given the region’s low precipitation and scarce natural water sources, The Two Cones & A Well takes on a dual role. When not in use, it functions as a rainwater harvesting system, while water from the bathing tub is repurposed for outdoor washing and cleaning. Heating is achieved through a hybrid system that integrates thermal solar panels, while the fire from below imbues the sauna’s concrete slab floor with stored warmth.
Between these layers, an everyday home unfolds, suspended between depth and daylight, solitude and gathering.
This domestic realm anchors the family at the threshold between the other two layers.
Engaging with the complexities of bathing culture and the intricate relationship between people and their bodies in the outdoors, The Two Cones & A Well offers a reinterpretation of these timeless rituals. It balances intimacy and exposure, ritual and spontaneity, past and present, nurturing a sense of community within a space designed for both solitude and shared experience.
