Maan: A Courtyard Settlement in Kandahar That Redefines Home for Widows and Their Children

Most housing proposals stop at the front door. Maan, whose name means "home," starts there and keeps going: into the courtyard, the garden, the workshop, the kindergarten and the mosque. Conceived for widows and their children in Afghanistan, the project treats architecture as a framework for independence and everyday dignity, where shelter is only the first of many things a home should provide. The argument is clear. Home is a network of rooms and relationships rather than an isolated dwelling.

Designed by Amir Hossein Rezaei, Mahsa Javadi and Mounes Sherafati, Maan was a Shortlisted entry in Resile. Set in Kandahar, the proposal is built on two concerns the designers name explicitly, independence and unity. It brings residential life into direct contact with productive, educational, cultural, agricultural, religious and communal activity, so that residents can meet their daily needs within the settlement and gradually shape their surroundings themselves.

A Walled Settlement Broken Down from Land to Room

The aerial view sets the tone: a walled brick complex sitting among dry fields, softened by palms and planted crop plots. The site plan shows the logic underneath. Large areas of land are first divided into functional zones, then broken into smaller architectural segments. Block entrances, a mosque, a kindergarten, a livestock yard and agricultural land all gather around a central domed pavilion. Instead of one monumental building, the designers assemble a sequence of smaller spatial communities that add up to a larger whole.

This matters because the zoning is not just about separating uses. Each subdivision adds another layer of circulation and communication, so the plan reads as a social diagram as much as a functional one. Food production and livestock sit within reach of the homes, which turns economic self-reliance into a question of proximity.

Courtyards That Work as Social Infrastructure

The grid of eight views moves through entrances, a restaurant, the mosque and the kindergarten porch, with figures crossing sunlit brick courtyards under palms. Here the courtyard does more than open space between buildings. It is the project's primary infrastructure. Courtyards of different sizes host different intensities of contact, from intimate gatherings inside residential blocks to collective events in the principal shared space.

The hierarchy is legible at every scale. Homes and semi-open spaces serve the individual household; block courtyards and gathering nodes serve neighbours; the main courtyard, meeting spaces, productive areas and central pavilion serve the whole community. Residents can encounter one another casually, without every social act depending on a large formal hall. That is a quiet but significant decision for a community of women rebuilding networks of support.

The Shell Pavilion as a Civic Anchor

At the centre of the plan stands an arched shell pavilion, shown here with an exploded layer diagram and a plan sketch. It is the one gesture in Maan that reads as a landmark, and the designers use it carefully. Rather than dominating the settlement, it collects the community scale of the hierarchy into a single shaded, open structure where figures walk freely through the plaza.

The exploded diagram suggests a structure conceived in readable layers, consistent with the project's broader interest in places residents can understand and engage with. As a civic anchor, the pavilion gives the dispersed blocks a shared point of orientation without turning the settlement into a hierarchy of buildings.

Brick Rooms Filtered Through Lattice and Screen

The interior view shrinks the project to its smallest unit: a brick room, a lattice window, striped floor cushions and a child standing in filtered light. It is a modest image, and that is its strength. The lattice controls light and view at once, offering privacy without sealing the room off from the life of the courtyard beyond.

This is where the designers' layered sequence of private, semi-open, shared and public space begins. The room is not a retreat from community but the first step in a gradual series of thresholds, and the patterned screen is the device that makes that gradient tangible.

Shaded Edges and the Gradual Walk from Home to Community

Two courtyard views show how circulation becomes part of daily social life. A two-storey brick court with perforated screen balustrades and planter boxes opens toward a lawn under a palm; a shaded walkway frames another courtyard where perforated brick screens and palms are backlit by low sun. Arcaded passages, shaded balconies and vegetation line the routes, so moving through Maan means passing through a sequence of semi-open corridors, gardens and block courtyards before reaching the larger communal areas.

That sequence avoids an abrupt split between private and public life, which is the project's most persuasive spatial idea. The planters along the balustrades also extend the agricultural logic of the site plan into the residential fabric, keeping growing and tending within arm's reach of home.

Why This Project Matters

Maan argues that sustainable architecture is not only about materials or energy performance; it also means designing places that can sustain relationships over time. For widows and their children, the designers recognise that resilience depends on work, learning, food, faith and companionship as much as on a roof. By placing these within a walkable hierarchy of courtyards, the project turns social sustainability into a spatial strategy rather than a slogan.

The proposal's restraint is part of its value. It avoids a single heroic object in favour of brick, screens, shade and planted courts arranged at human scale, with one pavilion to hold it together. By leaving room for residents to participate and gradually shape their own surroundings, Maan offers a model in which home is something a community keeps building rather than something it receives.

View the Full Project

About the Designers

Designers: Amir Hossein Rezaei, Mahsa Javadi, Mounes Sherafati

Enter a Design Competition on uni.xyz

uni.xyz runs architecture and design competitions year-round that reward proposals with spatial conviction and real site intelligence.

Project credits: Maan by Amir Hossein Rezaei, Mahsa Javadi, Mounes Sherafati Resile (uni.xyz).