TEHRAN — An international competition has been launched to redesign the memorial and cemetery for children martyred in the Minab school bombing, with organizers calling for architecture that goes beyond consolation to convey a message of peace and life.
The details of the competition were presented Monday at the Malek National Library and Museum in Tehran by Saeed Mehrpooya, secretary of the Minab Martyrs’ Memorial and Cemetery Design Competition.
Speaking at the press conference, Mehrpooya said the competition was organized under regulations requiring projects with broad social impact or those led by public institutions to be opened to designers through a transparent public call. The competition is open internationally to architects, designers and architecture graduates.
The decision followed a visit in April to Minab to meet families of those martyred and injured in the tragedy. Mehrpooya said the existing cemetery had been created hastily following the deaths and did not provide an appropriate memorial environment for families who continue to visit the site.
The tragedy claimed the lives of 156 people, including 120 students, 26 school staff members, seven parents, a school-bus driver, a pharmacist and a six-month-old infant, Zahra Shahri. Among the students were 73 boys and 47 girls.
He described the cemetery as unique because of the number of children martyred and buried together in a single location. For bereaved families, he said, the site has become more than a cemetery. 
Some parents have placed mattresses and pillows beside the graves so they can remain there for extended periods and speak privately with their children.
The competition’s visual identity draws on two symbols: a drop of blood and a colorless bird. The bird represents the innocence of the children, while its lack of color evokes the victims whose remains were never recovered.
Mehrpooya said the purpose of the project is to transform the site into an architectural narrator of the children’s deaths and a physical expression of their families’ grief. Its central theme is summarized by the competition’s slogan: “Architecture, Beyond Consolation, for Peace and Life.”
The proposed memorial covers a 2,000-square-meter site surrounded by 6,000 square meters 
of peripheral space in the heart of Minab, where it is closely integrated with the surrounding urban fabric and residents’ homes.
Mehrpooya also emphasized Minab’s historical character, describing the city as the “Garden of the South” and saying its historical and cultural identity should inform the design.
Registration for the competition will run free of charge from September 9 to November 11, 2026. Ten days will then be allocated to evaluating submissions, with the closing ceremony scheduled for the first week of December. Organizers hope the winning design can be implemented within three to four months, before the anniversary of the children’s deaths.
Mehrpooya called the cemetery “Nouristan,” or “Land of Light,” referring to the illuminated graves that now shine across the site at night and evoke a landscape of light in memory of those buried there.