Erfan Behroyan, June 2006.
DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
Architecture is not about sophistication and complexity. It is the craft of creating an excellent design. A design that, while harmonically beautiful, is exceptionally usable, ordinarily constructable and highly efficient.
All Erfan Behroyan's designs follow this principle. There is nothing extraordinary about a design that merely looks complex to human eye, and sacrifices all other qualities. A design is extraordinary only when it achieves all four qualities to a remarkable degree.
Erfan Behroyan has proven that by following the rules of geometry, forms can be created that appear highly sophisticated while they are inherently simple. The simple nature of these forms creates an opportunity for them to be optimised for usability without taking away from their harmonic, flowing and eye-pleasing appearance.
As an engineer, Erfan Behroyan always pays particular attention to the constructability aspect of his designs and strives to achieve a design that requires nothing more than a conventional structural design and an ordinary process of construction.
With the advancement of technology, it is possible to design and build the most unusual, and gravity-defying structures; However, these structures will never achieve the efficiency, durability and economy of conventional structures built using an ordinary process of construction.
Unless under very rare circumstances, it is highly unnecessary and quite impractical for architectural design to aim at making a political statement, criticize world affairs, or show respect for human condition. Erfan Behroyan believes that architectural design should instead aim for:
Harmonic Beauty
Excellent designs are in harmony with their surroundings and consider the cultural, environmental and ecological aspect of their service environment.
Excellent designs are pleasing to look at and add an element of beauty to their environment. This is different from being eye-catching; if anything a design must garb your attention for its unparalleled beauty.
Exceptional Usability
Excellent designs perform their intended function to the fullest and in the best possible way.
Excellent designs provide a livable environment for their occupants
Ordinary construction
Excellent designs are constructable, ideally, with minimal effort or close to what is conventional .
Excellent designs do not require extensive engineering and analysis to be realized. The opposite is a clear indication of a bad idea.
High Efficiency
Excellent designs perform up to standard and beyond, without requiring extensive resources.
Excellent designs require nothing more than minimum necessary resources for their construction. This is closely related to the need for extensive engineering noted above.
ABOUT
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ERFAN BEHROYAN
Licensed Professional Engineer, Structural Engineering, Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO)
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Masters of Engineering, Civil Engineering, University of Toronto;
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Bachelor of Applied Science and Engineering, Civil Engineering, University of Toronto;
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ELITE Certified, Institute of Engineering Leadership and Entrepreneurship, University of Toronto;
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Specialized in Building Science and high performance, net-zero energy, sustainable buildings.
Erfan Behroyan is a Licensed Professional Engineering, and a long time veteran of architecture and architectural design. He started painting at age five and overtime found new mediums of art such as sculpting and eventually started building maquettes of existing buildings. It was through this medium that he found his love for architecture and soon began creating building designs of his own and by age 18 had already put together a portfolio of architectural designs for a variety of building types.
He spent most of his youth working towards undertaking undergraduate studies in architecture. However, upon learning about the extended graduate degrees of architecture that accepted student from other professional fields, he decided to use this opportunity to and complement his future architectural career with technical and engineering knowledge on buildings and pursue a Bachelor of Civil Engineering followed by a Masters of Architecture. He completed his studies in Bachelor of Applied Science and Engineering in Civil Engineering at University of Toronto and began preparing his portfolio to apply to Masters of Architecture in a number of architecture schools including Harvard's Graduate School of Architecture.
As part of the application process of Harvard he had to complete a number of courses in architecture and he began taking these courses as part of his undergraduate studies in engineering. However, he soon found out that studying architecture would not be as fruitful as he had imagined, due to the subjective aspect of design which, in architecture, stems from its roots in arts. So he decided to instead complete his masters in civil engineering with a focus on building science and high performance buildings and later work his way to architecture through the industry. He graduated with Master Engineering in Civil Engineering from University of Toronto and after a number of years of professional experience received his License as a Professional Engineer from Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO).
Along his academic studies, Erfan Behroyan, got involved with student initiatives in sustainable design and became one of the founding members of Team Toronto at University of Toronto, in the role of Lead of Architecture and Building Science. Over four and half years, Erfan Behroyan worked with the other founding members and lead of Team Toronto to expand the operations of the team. Eventually, Team Toronto grew into a multidisciplinary team that expanded across University of Toronto, Toronto Metropolitan University and Seneca College with over 50 undergraduate and graduate students and an advisory body of professors in every discipline, and it became ECOStuido. The outcome of Team Toronto and later ECOStudio's operations was Solar Block and Zero House which was selected as a finalist for the 2018 Solar Decathlon Competitions in China.