Selling a vision of a lifestyle is part of our jobs as architects. We seldom come across projects, where the brief is to adjust the design around the client’s lifestyle. We had an instance like this where we were asked to create a house with ample natural light yet introverted, a house with many windows yet private, and a house that is tall yet feels humble.
The site, located in Vadodara, made sense to incorporate a courtyard-like situation as Vadodara lies in a hot, dry climate. Challenge was to carve this out from a small plot size of 1100 sq ft, and still manage to add all functional requirements.
The ground floor is reserved for utilities and parking, creating a stilt situation for the house to sit upon. The light well is strategically placed within the house to allow even distribution of the site into two parts. The built mass is staggered to allow for maximum utilization of volume.
The level difference between various spaces is enough to create a sense of privacy within them. In situations of split levels, often, the staircase is the core that holds all spaces together. It is the protagonist in the house, everything revolves around it. It is loud and always visible. And, its love interest is the beautiful courtyard, appropriated next to it. It is humble and has a Zen-like calm, but again always visible. They sit together, right in the center of the house. All spaces, wanting to be introverted, open into this core- sometimes as a balcony, and other times as punctures of various scales trying to borrow natural light from it.
Each space gets a piece of the light well. However, the staircase core gives a maximalist experience of the entirety of light well.
To capture ample natural daylight, just the light well would not have been enough. Eventually, all spaces are borrowing light from the exterior surface of the house as well. They are either lifted from general sill and lintel levels, or have smaller puncture, or are in various shapes and sizes framing the exterior views to borrow natural light. Avoiding large windows of regular sizes keeps the home an introvert structure, allows for ample natural light and ventilation and keeps the privacy intact.
