HOOD: A Sunken Amphitheater Where Two Divided Neighborhoods Finally Meet

Most community centers announce themselves by rising above their surroundings. HOOD does the opposite. It sinks its most important room, an open-air amphitheater, into the lowest point of a sloping coastal site and lets two neighborhoods with little in common walk downhill to meet there. The building does not ask residents to cross a symbolic threshold. It lets gravity and topography lead them to common ground.

The project, designed by Hani Mansurnejad and mentored by Hania Hashemi, Reza Farahmand and maedeh ahmad, is a winning entry in the Hood competition. Its site sits between the Wiggins and Bonela neighborhoods, two communities separated by cultural and visual differences. Mansurnejad's response is a center offering voluntary services and event spaces, conceived less as a destination and more as a link that both sides can claim.

A Gathering Bowl Set at the Site's Lowest Point

The opening rendering shows the heart of the scheme: a stepped amphitheater courtyard sheltered by a curving, timber-toned roof, with people sitting on the terraces and drifting across the floor in daylight. The section beside it explains why the space feels so natural. The terraces follow the existing fall of the land, and the wavy roof forms ride above them like a loose canopy rather than a sealed lid. Trees, figures and open sky remain part of the composition.

Placing the social hub at the bottom of the slope is the project's sharpest decision. Everyone arriving from higher ground looks down into the gathering space before entering it, so the building reveals its purpose from the approach. The amphitheater becomes a natural venue for the celebrations and cultural events the brief calls for, without needing a formal hall to contain them.

Two Axes, One Converging Ring

Seen from within, the circular amphitheater floor is ringed by concentric steps, with overlapping curved roof planes opening the space to the surrounding landscape. This is where the plan's two key axes converge. One reaches from each neighborhood, and their meeting point is deliberately left open and shared rather than assigned to either side.

The circle matters here. A ring has no front row reserved for one community and no back row for the other; everyone faces inward toward the same center. Mansurnejad turns a planning diagram about unity into a seating arrangement that people actually experience, which is a more convincing argument than any symbol painted on a facade.

A Programme Wrapped Around the Courtyard

The ground and first floor plans organize every function around the central courtyard. Enclosed and semi-open classrooms host workshops and educational programs, counseling rooms provide private space for guidance and support, event halls take on gatherings and celebrations, and temporary accommodation houses volunteers and residents. Marketplace stalls add an economic layer, giving local entrepreneurs a place to sell community products.

The range of spatial privacy is what makes this mix work. Counseling rooms need enclosure, classrooms can open partially to the air, and market stalls benefit from foot traffic. By graduating spaces from closed to semi-open to fully public around one courtyard, the plan lets quiet and loud activities coexist while still sharing a single address. The east elevation at the bottom of the sheet hints at how the building sits low against its grassy backdrop.

Ribbon Roofs Built for Humid Coastal Air

The east elevation rendering shows a low brown building with an undulating roof and ribbon windows, set in front of trees and a grassy hillside. Its horizontal profile keeps it subordinate to the landscape, but the form is doing environmental work too. On a coastal site with high humidity, the ribbon-like massing and open spaces are designed to pull natural airflow through the building, reducing reliance on mechanical cooling.

The material palette follows the same logic. Concrete handles moisture resistance at the structural level, while locally sourced wooden reeds provide shading and give the surfaces their warm tone. It is a modest, legible pairing: a durable shell for a damp climate and a regional, renewable layer that filters sun and ties the building to local craft.

Reading the Slope Between Wiggins and Bonela

The site map, with its circular inset, locates the plot between the two neighborhoods along a coastal street network. It clarifies how carefully the building responds to the ground. The southern masses align with street level for easy access, the social hub drops to the lowest point, and a northwest entrance axis connects to the elevated terrain beyond.

Each edge of the building therefore greets its neighbors at their own level. Residents arriving from the street walk straight in; those coming from the higher ground descend along the northwest axis. Topography that might have reinforced separation becomes the organizing device for access from every direction.

Why This Project Matters

Architecture rarely resolves social divides on its own, and HOOD does not pretend otherwise. Its value lies in giving a fractured community practical reasons to share space: a class to attend, a counselor to visit, a stall to run, an event to watch from the steps. Mansurnejad's strength is in turning abstract intentions about unity into concrete spatial moves, two converging axes, a shared ring, levels matched to each neighborhood's approach.

The project also shows that climate response and social ambition can share the same gestures. The ribbon roofs that ventilate the building are the same forms that shelter the amphitheater, and the reed shading that cools the interiors grounds the design in local material. For neighborhoods facing similar cultural and social divides, HOOD offers a useful model: start from the land, find the lowest common point, and build the public room there.

View the Full Project

About the Designers

Designer: Hani Mansurnejad

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Project credits: HOOD by Hani Mansurnejad Hood (uni.xyz).