Since its inception in 2001 by Ali Soltani and Atefeh Karbasi, the Ayeneh Office officially started its architectural activities in 2003. Ali Soltani is an architect who received his Master's Degree in architecture from Tehran University of Arts. His partner, Atefeh Karbasi is also an architect who was graduated in architecture from Tehran University of Arts. After completing her first Master's Degree there, she followed her academic career to receive a Master's Degree in landscape architecture from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran and following that, received her PhD in architecture from Shahid Beheshti University. She has been a member of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at Shahid Beheshti University since 2011 and published a number of books and articles in the field of architectural design and the history of Iranian architecture. Ayeneh Architecture Office is located in Tehran and has several design and reconstruction projects in different cities. The projects include different uses such as villas or residential complexes, offices, commercial and cultural complexes, and parks in different scales.
Architects of the Ayeneh Office believe that architecture like a mirror should reflect the context or the surrounding environment in the general sense. Context in this regard refers to the setting that a project begins to happen. Architecture welcomes the good way of living in a place and accepts its goodness. In other words, architecture, in one sense, acts as mirror to reflect the life of its context, and broadly speaking, it even reflects many features of the context (such as technology, crafting skills, economics, politics, crafting duration, and culture). The approach and design method in the Ayeneh office is to delve into the heart of both the subject and the place in order to reflect or increase their desirability. We try to excavate the project subject – which is the life that is going to flow in it –as well as its location to find the initial concepts shaping the design, and then epitomize it in our architecture.
Over the past decade, this office has received numerous national and international awards, including several "Memar" awards, "Architecture and Building" awards in the field of interior design and façade design. For instance, the first rank of the Memar award in the category of residential buildings in 2011, the third rank of the Memar award in the category of public buildings in 2014, the second rank in the category of residential buildings in 2021. The office also obtained the first rank of the interior design award in 2011. Ayeneh office was also nominated for one of the finalists of the 2010 WAF International Competition in Singapore as the only Iranian candidate.
