A tight urban site in an old neighborhood becomes the site for a family home that is maximal in lifestyle while being minimal in its aesthetic sensibilities.
Project Name: The Pool Pavilion
Studio Name: Thirdspace Architecture Studio
Project Location: Belagavi, Karnataka, India
Completion Year: 2024
Gross Built Area (m2/ ft2): 600 Sq.m
Project Team: Praveen Bavadekar, Madhuri Gulbani
Photographer: Suryan and Dang
The requirements called for a parking for seven cars, extensive back of house service areas, four bedrooms, a home theater as well as a swimming pool. To shoehorn these requirements into the site would have meant that there would be a compromise on the building’s open spaces and its sense of openness. Several simple strategies were deployed to generate the design.
The house was lifted on a high plinth that allowed for all service areas to be accommodated in a semi ground floor with a low height. The high plinth for the upper ground floor meant that the setback on the eastern side was activated as a swimming pool.
The pool is treated as a semi-open volume, with a terracotta screen on three sides and a glass roof on the top. What would otherwise have been just a setback margin for the house becomes a swimming pool pavilion that extends the house, and becomes a performative landscape. It further acts as a cooling device for the interior spaces.
The public spaces unfold along the north to south between two parallel volumes – the semi
enclosed, semi pervious volume of the pool, and a more solid, more impervious volume that contains the private spaces of the bedrooms and toilets. The pool is primarily accessed from the living spaces by a deck and also by a sit out which is outside the dining room.
The simple configuration of the program in plan is activated by sectionally opening up the spaces of the public core. The design allows for multiple views of the pool from the various public spaces and that in itself adds to the quality of the subdued interior light that is reflected by the water body.
Overall, the design reconciles several contradicting parameters into one holistic space. The tenets of Vastu shastra are strictly adhered here, respecting the Client’s wishes. However, these are harnessed to create a set of interlocked spaces that act in tandem with one another, letting the house be private at some places, while being open in other more public areas.
The inscrutability of the exteriors is contrasted by a more open interior that allows multiple views across the section. The material palette is subdued with a minimum hint of colour, and an emphasis on neutral shades and tones of timber. This is also an extension of the Client’s tastes and their spiritual and philosophical underpinnings.
