Smart Center

Launched by the Children of Armenia Fund (COAF), SMART is an innovative educational approach that marries new world technology with the practices established in rural cultures.

The structure’s organic form embraces the landscape by creating a sinuous ribbon like walkway creating a 7000 m2 courtyard. The one-storey building is spread horizontally while following the topography of the site.

The architecture establishes a new approach regarding landscape and nature, it tries to engage with the scale of the landscape by creating a form that embraces the surrounding and creating ambiguity as it creates an environment more than a building.

The design focuses on architecture and its relation with nature enabling a different view of architecture and the void. The landscape becomes the heart of the project while the program is arranged around it enabling a new reading of the built environment as a new nature.

Location: Lori Province, Armenia
Architect: Paul Kaloustian
Project Team: Nathalie Fatte – Viken Khatcherian – Lara Assaker
Local Architect and Structure: Urban Unit
Electro-Mechanical: Mangassarian
Contractor: Kanaka
Client: COAF
Built-up Area: 4200m2 + 755 m2 (hotel)