The challenge was not construction, but extraction — how to take a zone of silence out of a densifying city.
Three mature trees on the north-eastern edge — a Gulmohar and two African Tulips — were treated as fixed. The upper mass retreats behind them so the morning sun reaches the front lawn, while a deep south-western court holds shade and privacy. No open space is residual; each one is framed from somewhere, and therefore inhabited.
Two orthogonal walls of Delhi Quartzite rubble, laid by local masons, organise a tripartite plan timed to the day. Bedrooms take the morning on the north-east; a double-height core stays luminous through midday and opens onto both gardens; study and entrance buffer the afternoon heat on the south-west.
Drawings
Click any sheet to enlargePlans read north up. The two orthogonal rubble walls are the thick lines; everything else is arranged against them.
The street edge
The plot sits in a villa development that builds to its boundaries. The house gives the street a low, quiet face and keeps its height back.
The three trees
A Gulmohar and two African Tulips on the north-eastern edge were fixed before the plan was drawn. The upper mass steps back behind them.
The deep court
On the south-west, a court cut deep into the mass holds shade through the afternoon and buffers the rooms behind it.
Entrance
The entrance room is the buffer: it takes the afternoon heat on the south-west so the core behind it does not have to.
The double-height core
The centre of the plan is one luminous volume open to both gardens, crossed at the upper level by a teak bridge and lit from a clerestory above.
Living and kitchen
Bedrooms
The bedrooms take the north-east and therefore the morning. The ground-floor room opens straight onto the lawn.
Study
With the entrance, the study buffers the south-west — the two rooms that take the heat so the rest of the house does not.
Detail
“We used materials that age, rather than expire.”