Off-the-Grid
The lift halts on the 11th floor, a softly lit entrance foyer, recessed to create a welcoming feel with a bright artwork against a neutral grey wall contrasted by the black terrazzo floor, an eight feet wide door with its wood carved handle, stands ready for a handshake.
As the wooden door pivots open, a straight wooden wall directs one towards a large curved cast-in-situ concrete plane which draws the eyes towards a living room flooded with natural light further to the landscaped balcony outside. The living room is tucked between three curved concrete walls, the first warps an existing sheer wall while the second and third cups the Parent’s bath and kitchen store respectively.
The given of the apartment is left unaltered, with no inserts either touching the peripheral walls or the ceiling, to let the natural light flow in the space, leaving no dark corners in the house. The maximum available height is used by leaving the concrete ceiling exposed with its beam grid juxtaposed with the planes resting on the floor. The solidity of concrete and wooden planes further accentuates the linear expanse of the apartment, with a large balcony to the east and a clear opening to the west.
While the concrete walls curves and guides, the solid wooden walls store everything in the house from hand-wash to crockery cabinets to wardrobes to the bedrooms. The floor modulates towards a more private part of the house as one steps up from the living room to the dining.
The shorter side of the house spans north to south, with dining window on the south and double height staircase to the terrace on the north. The southern window brings in harsh light for one half of the year. With curtains drawn, the dining becomes dark and to keep the space lit, a skylight on top and a small green pocket below is added, this induces the feeling of dining and cooking with the landscape. Within a rather monochromatic palette, some warmth from the wood and a splash of bright red from the kitchen dado and the metal legs of the dining table made with black lava stone top adds elegance and modern feel to the space.
The curved staircase to the north, is a structural insert in the existing apartment. As the steps fold on the external side of the curve, the internal side holds a place of worship, lit with natural light from the terrace above, at the same time the underside of the stairs become a cozy reading corner for the guest bedroom; a space nestled between the entrance wall and puja. The western edge overlooking the Tapi river with the city scape, are the two bedrooms for the couple and their sons, connected by a sunken multipurpose space which serves as an extension from the kid’s room, as the bi-synchronized doors pivot open.
As the curved staircase in fair finished concrete folds upwards, one departs from a rather calm and polished interiors to a rustic ground on the terrace. The smooth fine black terrazzo from the lower floor turns into large pieces of randomly laid, black lime stone. The covered pause on the terrace is of sort a large glass gazebo, opening on three sides to three zones of the terrace. The curve of the stair within the glass extends into a low height curved partition wall, forming a green pocket to the east; a large planter box along with a Spathodea tree, a screening wall, a stepped down seating and a dense plantation edge punctuated with two planter boxes with trees on either side creates an enclosure to the south; while a step-up zone to the west with a dining, gazes at the cityscape.
The terrace is designed as a recluse for the clients on weekends, to brunch on the shaded west, nap in the tree house like upper deck, read in the gravelled dense court by late afternoon and dine with the sun set; it can entertain a small or large group of friends by providing comfortable areas to socialize and celebrate.
The house features an open plan, a bare slab, a modulating floor which offers variation of scale in space, fair finished curved concrete walls and teak wood partition walls as planes that are capacitated with some form of housing within it, handmade IPS walls and terrazzo floor; all have been craft fully used to evoke the quality of being minimal, consistent and extremely rooted to the naturalness of the space.
The layout of the flooring, a 6’x6’ grid; the rested planes of concrete and wood on the floor; the exposed beam grid in the ceiling with skylights that extends the relationship of the landscaped terrace to the lower floor; all independent but harmoniously connected. The project is an overlay of multiple grids, at the same time being off-the-grid.
