12.0

Inclined Studio

• Architects

Amidst the scrubland setting of Kanjari Village, which is very close to the wetlands of Thol & Nalsarovar, lies this site which just had a lonesome Piludi(Salvadora persica) tree. The brief received was to make a residence with a gigantic living area to host large gatherings and couple of bedrooms to reside within the precincts of these wetlands. It’s a single floor residence enveloped in glass and exposed concrete to devise a monolithic composition. The complete house is shaded by an inverted slab cantilevered about 12 feet from the inner facade, supported by mild steel colonnade for maximum visibility. This 12 feet projection defines the residence and that’s how the name of this house came up. 12.0 was designed on the principle of providing maximum prospects and even the open planning was done to support maximum visibility of the landscape from all the interior spaces.

photo_credit Inclined Studio — Inclined Studio

The residence has been made to integrate the lush green ecosystem with the pleasant indoors. With full-height fenestrations which are mostly sliding & folding, the 1500 sq. ft living space transforms into a 8000 sq.ft gathering space as soon as the shutters are clamped to the either side. There is also a courtyard which acts as a buffer between the semi-private and private bedrooms of the house. This court brings in more light & ventilation, while acting as an open to sky lobby between the 2 bedrooms. Although small, this space creates a balance between the gathering and resting spaces, and adding a required void between the activities.

The house is the system of 3 defined blocks as per the activity, the gathering block, the retiring block with the bedrooms and the utility block with the wet kitchen & services. The plan of the house is quite straightforward with a wide vestibule looking towards the parametric ceiling of the internal dry kitchen. Both the sides of this vestibule are distinctive views, where one is defined with wooden louvres, framing the central garden while the other of the courtyard with lush green Areca palms and Radermacheras. This vestibule takes us directly to the living and family areas, connected to the dining & dry kitchen, thus forming a great room. The dry kitchen is connected to a separate utility block which houses the wet(Maharaj) kitchen. The placement of Maharaj kitchen was kept separate so that it can cater to the outer deck, sunken sitting and the party lawn directly without the need of disturbing the main residential space. Similarly even the powder toilets have been provided in the same zone, so that they can be utilised from inside as well as the outer sitting spaces.

With the comforting and neutral colour palette, the interiors follow the tone of sobriety. The complete floor has been laid with custom designed terrazzo tiles, and the furniture design has pastel hues of blues and plum. The internal dry kitchen has a parametric ceiling carved out from sycamore wood logs, and this is the only complex element amidst the completely minimalist space design. This ceiling has been made up of more than 750 wooden pieces, each of different size. The dark stained Ashwood, the pastel upholstery and the matt black aluminium sections and skirting are the only visible tones in the living areas. This has been done to justify the monolithic architectural shell, and thus there are no such pop outs in the interiors. If we walk around this space, all we experience is the natural views borrowed through the large glass fenestrations. The two bedrooms are identical in elements with same layouts and furnishings, with the only change in their colour themes. Each and every space of the house has cross ventilation through the aluminium louvres, with insect nets, which have been taken as a part of the fenestrations, so that the fresh air is cycled well throughout the building.

The landscape has been designed as an ecosystem, with about 110 species of trees and more than 150 species of shrubs and groundcovers. Our goal was to preserve the datum, and thus the soil filling on this site was avoided unless necessary for good growth in vegetable farms. The site was 5 ft below the road level and after making a huge rainwater reservoir, we were able to fill up only about 2 ft to the datum. This helped us to save a lot of expenditure, as well create a resource for irrigating the plantations throughout the year. The reservoir is able to save about 45 lakh litres of water, and due to it, we are able to support a lot of fauna, be it fishes, or birds. Overall the site houses a nursery, a huge orchard, vegetable gardens enough to provide veggies for more than 20 families, central party lawn and a dense forest, adding to the diversity of the scrubland in the surroundings.