
This project puts the 19th-century concept of a “Wardian case” — a mini greenhouse for tropical plants — into a multicultural 21st-century context. Built in a lean-to greenhouse style using modular joinery, it provides a home for a distillery and a bitter orange tree of a culturally significant variety that’s used to make aragh bahar narenj (bitter orange water) in Iran. With a solar chimney for lighting and ventilation, a rainwater collection system for irrigation and walls covered in translucent oiled hanji paper (a traditional Korean material dating back hundreds of years), the design reaches across cultures and centuries to create something refreshingly new.

Bahar Narenj reaches across cultures and centuries to create something refreshingly new.