The site is situated in a gated community. The clients brief was that the house should be modern with maximum garden area – A house that allows for an integrated indoor/outdoor living, something the Bangalore climate makes possible.
Studio Name: Livingform
Design Team: Sagar Shetty, Parikshit, Mousumi Biswas, Aloma D’Souza, Upal Basu, De Neeff Quentin & Fujisaki Masato (landscape concept)
Area: Plot – 7000sqft, Builtup – 4200sqft
Year: 2008
Location: Hennur, Bangalore
Consultants: Cruthi Consultants(Structural), IAES(MEP)
Photography Credits: Clare Arni
Other Credits: Pruthvi associates(Civil Contractor), G.G. Electricals(Electrical Contractor)
The main house is a linear G+1 structure, set right in front of the site along the street with minimum margins to allow for spaces to open out to the back garden – with a roof garden outhouse kitchen and dining space that intersects at right angles – enveloped by the 6 meter high rear fence vertical garden. A house in a courtyard.
The view from the street is one of an urban wall accommodating a visitors front entrance gate leading to the front porch / seating through a shallow ramp tightly squeezed between the fence and the house, a large car parking porch with a secondary household entrance, living and a bedroom at the far end. On the garden side – the kitchen, like a ship, is docked to the main house, the link/appendage to it becoming the dining in the privacy provided by vertical garden. The main metal spiral staircase with wooden treads on a black-oxide platform in the middle of the house (near the front entrance) overlooks the dining and kitchen at the garden end. This forms the core zone and the spine around which the house evolves and relates consistently to its indoor/outdoor functions. This stairs leads one to the first floor family space with bedrooms on either sides and steps on to roof garden above the dining / kitchen. A narrow bunk-bed like metal stairs with a wooden treads one to the terrace above with a 360° view of the horizon. The house is informed by a free flowing open plan blurring the water tight compartmentalization of living spaces within and to its attitude to the outdoors.
The house construction is a framed structure – composite RCC and exposed structural steel beam construction with concrete block in-filled walls. The structure and the skin are interwoven – the inherent structure expressing itself on the garden side facade – light and more transparent. The bedrooms on the first floor and the kitchen on the ground express themselves as independent volumes in the main building / landscape
The flooring in the house is of warm natural stone i.e. Kadapa (ground floor), polished Kota (first floor), wood in the master bedroom, vitrified tiles in the kitchen and bath rooms. Plain cement floors in the outdoors and exposed concrete ceiling areas have impressions of leaf motifs from the surrounding trees. The railings, structural beams and staircases are in metal. The compound walls too are light weight and transparent chain link mesh type that gives the impression of space beyond the confines of the plot and the house built on open landscape. An industrial quality through use of metal detailing and material interplay has been carefully integrated to the overall feel of the house without taking away the warmth.
The ventilation in the house works through two service ducts that act as air shafts on either side of the main spiral stairs that create a natural air current by convection – the breeze funnelled in through the main house and the green vertical wall from the outside. Rain water harvesting and recharging pits harness the rain water. The landscape includes fruiting trees such as coconut, areca, lime, pomegranate chickoo, avocado, papaya, banana and a herb garden.
The house from the street side is urban and formal. On the garden side it is open / transparent allowing for natural light, rain and view outside to be integral part of the house experience in privacy and security of the 6 metre high vertical garden that forms the rear green fence. The house transforms itself into a light box in the night – light spilling out from all the openings bringing the various parts and volumes alive and afloat – revealing its skin and bones finely balanced and lightly perched on the landscape.
Livingform Architects
A constantly shifting population, an assertive new generation with rapidly changing needs and lifestyles marks a new era with resource and environmental pressures which have an impact far beyond the local. As architects we have to truly believe in our ability to invent and create programs to accommodate for a new urban living not only stylistically but programmatic – a creative challenge
Architecture and design in the world today allows us to experiment with light space, material and the bounding of it in unprecedented ways – and to partner their clients in this exciting process.
Livingform established in 2004, formerly known as JASS Architects in partnership with Ms. Jaspreet Kaur (1994 -2004). Since inception, the driving force behind the practice has been to combine the disciplines of urban, landscape and architectural design to balance the vision with attention to detail, the quality with the usability, the technologically up-to-date with the visually stimulating. The result is the weaving of an interactive human environment that is sustainable – where buildings become vertical and horizontal linkages to the landscape around them.
Livingform has developed over the years into a multi-disciplinary design firm, providing consultancy from feasibility studies, development of design briefs, design concept to detail and overall coordination for a wide spectrum of projects – from medium to large scale public, institutional, industrial, residential and interior design.
The list of their clients include prominent corporates such as the TVS Group of Companies, Anand Group India Ltd, Kirloskar Group Ltd and Featherlite Pvt Ltd
They strive to provide professional design services of the highest order while adhering to requirements of quality, cost and time. Their success has been possible due to a comprehensive, multi-disciplined team approach to design – a collaborative consultation among experts in fields of structure and engineering, as well as in landscape, product and graphic design. They place an enduring emphasis on appropriate design, technical thoroughness and responsible project management.
They believe the best architecture improves the lives of those who use it, makes a positive contribution to its environment and ultimately withstands the test of time in its purpose and artistry.
Sagar Shetty
