The Meybod Municipality Arg project
Meybod - Yazd, Iran
- Client
- Municipality of Meybod
- Typology
- Education
- Size M² / FT²
- 42,000 / 452,084
- Status
- In design
2026
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The Meybod Municipality Arg is an endeavor to redefine the municipal building as an integral part of the urban space; a place where the public realm, administrative functions, and civic engagement take shape alongside one another. Drawing upon the historical, cultural, and climatic characteristics of Meybod, the project's architecture offers a contemporary approach to its context—an approach that, rather than directly replicating historical forms, reinterprets the spatial logic and principles of vernacular architecture within the building's organization. Controlling light and solar radiation, creating shade, focusing on the quality of open spaces, and the massing and positioning of the volume, alongside the requirements of a contemporary administrative facility, have formed the foundation of the design. The result is a building that strives to establish an integrated relationship between administrative function, public space, architectural identity, and climatic response.
The surrounding open space is defined as an extension of the city's public realm; therefore, the project's site is conceived as far more than just an access area or parking lot, transforming into a platform for the presence, pause, and interaction of citizens. This decision blurs the boundary between the building and the city, ensuring that the municipality takes shape not as a closed administrative volume, but as a space in the heart of the city—open, accessible, and belonging to the citizens.
The necessity of constructing the new Meybod Municipality building in 2020 was rooted in two fundamental factors: on one hand, the dilapidation and physical constraints of the existing structure, and on the other, the upgrade in the municipality's organizational grade alongside a shift in urban management paradigms. The former building neither had the capacity to accommodate the expanding administrative structure, nor provided a suitable platform for delivering efficient services worthy of the citizens. Nevertheless, the design approach went beyond merely replacing an aging structure. The project served as an opportunity to redefine the relationship between the citizen, the administrative space, and the urban management institution. Therefore, the core objective focused on creating a complex that simultaneously provides an efficient and ergonomic environment for the staff, a legible and transparent space for visitors, and a structure commensurate with the institutional prestige of the municipality. On the other hand, being situated in the hot and dry climate of Meybod led the design process toward a multi-layered solution—one that fulfills the functional needs of a contemporary administrative complex while harmonizing with the climatic logic and historical identity of the region. Based on this, the "Meybod Municipality Arg" was conceived as an urban landmark and an integrated physical entity; a building where organizational function, desert climate, and civic dignity converge into a single, unified whole.
