Para Hotel - Kiarash Kiany

Type: Academic, Undergraduate Thesis
Location: Tehran, Iran
Year: 2020
Program: Hotel
Instructor: Mohammad Khaef
Method: Agent-Based Modeling, Flocking Algorithms
Software: Rhinoceros, Grasshopper, Keyshot, Lumion, Adobe Suite

Moody dusk exterior render of Para Hotel showing the organic mesh facade with a figure in the foreground — Para Hotel, Tehran, Iran, 2020

Overview

Para Hotel is my undergraduate thesis project located in Tehran, designed using Agent-Based Modeling to simulate the behavioral logic of individual agents within a defined rule set. Rather than imposing geometry from the outside, the project uses flocking algorithms to decentralize the design process and allow spatial organization to emerge naturally from computational interactions. Site and environmental data including sunlight exposure, access points, and view corridors were translated into attraction and repulsion points that guided agent movement, producing the hotel volumetric configuration and circulation paths directly from environmental logic.

Analysis Layers and Interest Points

The design process began with reading the site through multiple analytical layers: access points, sunlight exposure, wind direction, and view corridors. These were each translated into force fields within the agent system. Attraction points pulled agents toward desirable zones while repulsion points pushed them away from constraints, collectively producing the spatial pressure map that seeded the flocking simulation.

Site analysis diagram showing access points and directional vectors in red and orange — Analysis layers: access points mapped onto the site as agent attraction and repulsion vectors

Purple agent interest point spheres distributed around the hotel volume on a city model — Interest points in accordance with the analysis: agent attraction nodes distributed across the site volume

Behavioral Rules and Simulation

Each agent responded to six behavioral rules: separation, alignment, cohesion, wandering, view force, and arrive force. The resulting emergent spatial clusters became programmatic zones. Wind analysis and iterative form-finding sweeps refined the volumetric output, with the structural mesh generated directly from agent trajectories.

Six circle diagrams illustrating the six flocking behavioral rules used in the ABM system — Behavioral rules: separation, alignment, cohesion, wandering, view force, arrive force

Abstract flock path diagram showing agent movement traces and program zone emergence — Agent simulation diagram showing program distribution across emergent spatial clusters

Form evolution: parameter variation sweeps showing how the building volume shifts with agent rule weights

Agent flocking motion: real-time simulation of the behavioral system that generated the building form

Program and Levels

The hotel program spans multiple floors arranged directly from the agent clustering logic. Moving through the exploded diagram: the outer mesh shell wraps the entire volume. Inside, the program descends from the room ring at the upper levels through entertainment, services, restaurants, health club, gardens, multipurpose halls, ballroom, lobby, and basement. Each zone occupies the spatial region where agents with similar behavioral weights converged.

Exploded axonometric diagram of Para Hotel showing all program layers with labels — Exploded diagram showing all program layers from the outer mesh shell through the full hotel section

RENDERS

ROOM TYPES

FLOOR PLANS

SECTIONS