A GLIMPSE OF ONGOING PROJECTS - JESUDAS RESIDENCE AT UTHANDI

JESUDAS RESIDENCE AT UTHANDI
The design of the house was mainly influenced by the client’s brief. The client’s family is quite casual yet strongly rooted to the Tamil culture and language. The house proposes an exciting dialogue with the public street as well as the buildings surrounding it. The planning has been demarcated intentionally based on programmatic use of the space as either public or private spaces. The ground floor mostly has public spaces such as the living room, dining, garden area, parking space which can be used as a gathering/party space with provision for barbecue station, as well as the office space while all the living spaces are planned in the first floor, mezzanine and second floor. The ground floor has been planned with the intention of having it as a stilt floor, mostly demarcated using glass partitions and open planning. The first floor consists of the living room with a bedroom for the client’s parents, prayer room for them with a garden surrounding it which acts as a buffer zone with provision for walking. The first floor accommodates the kitchen as well as the dining with a cantilevered deck for informal seating. The second floor consists of the home theatre, master bedroom, childrens’s room and study area. A cantilevered concrete overhang marks the entrance to the house and creates a sheltered outdoor space with a void in the ground floor. Allowed the social areas to be well lit. The use of slanting walls, combination of exposed concrete and plastered walls tend to depict the playfulness and the casuality of the family. The design was carefully done to strike a perfect balance between the implementation of traditional elements such as the thinnai, courtyards, open courts and the sculptural, modern form in the exterior. The combination of a slanting walls and a curved wall in the exterior with straight walls in the interior blends smoothly across the design. Vertical connection between the spaces and visual transparency within the house is one of the most important feature that brings the people closer and enhances the bonding between the three generations. Weaving the internal and external spaces by creating green pockets and providing cut outs to allow the light to flood into the house. The house is naturally well lit. Staircase is one of the most important element in this house, which acts as a sculpture by itself, the stairs tend to change as separate layers and divert from each other at angles rather than a typical staircase ,extending along the central core volume hence connecting the different levels. So the three floors are connected through two double height spaces, these double height spaces serve as connectors between the floors and permit interaction, so that the occupants are never divorced from the floor below. The connectivity between the floors was one of the main aspects expected by the client as his father tends to be curious and likes to look around the house, each bedroom has been provided with its own spacious balconies to view the road. Angled in different directions with volumetric variation, the house is designed almost entirely in exposed concrete creating a sculptural presence. Each of its internal spaces have a unique identity with open, enclosed and semi-enclosed spaces, constantly changing in relation as one moves within the house or within each of its rooms. The planning ensures cross ventilation for every space within the house.