CONCEPT & CONTEXT
Set within the expansive plains of Kurukshetra, Haryana, the 3,500-square-foot Permeable Box House responds to intense summers, seasonal shifts and the strong south-western sun. Its composition is generated through two primary boxes and two projecting balcony boxes, arranged in a controlled symmetry that gives the street elevation a clear and balanced identity. Between these volumes, a central void interrupts the apparent solidity of the façade, allowing the house to remain visually composed yet spatially permeable.
As the building extends towards the west, its architectural layers become increasingly responsive to the climate. Deep balcony recesses provide shade, while the jaali feature filters harsh sunlight, encourages ventilation and maintains privacy. The open terrace and central void further reduce the visual weight of the mass, bringing daylight, moving air and greenery deep into the house.
This balance between solidity and openness lies at the heart of the project. From the street, the house appears protective and composed. Within, it unfolds through shaded thresholds, terraces, courtyards and interconnected voids. The result is an enclosed yet breathable home that remains private while sustaining a close relationship with the outdoors, the changing climate and the rhythms of everyday life.
DESIGN INTENT
The composition is defined by two symmetrical volumes, each articulated by a projecting balcony box. Their symmetrical arrangement is reinforced by two balcony boxes that project from the façade, creating depth, shade and a strong architectural frame. A central void separates and connects these elements, drawing light and air into the interior while establishing a visual relationship between the different levels of the house.
The façade becomes progressively more climate-responsive towards the west and south-west, where solar exposure is most severe. Deep cutouts shield the openings, and the jaali acts as a permeable second skin that softens glare, reduces heat gain and filters views without compromising ventilation. Rather than serving as ornament alone, the jaali is an essential environmental device that gives the elevation both character and climatic intelligence.
The open terrace extends the internal spaces into the outdoors, while the voids and recessed balconies create shaded transitional zones between inside and outside. Symmetry provides order to the overall composition, but the varied depths, screens and openings prevent it from becoming static. Openness and privacy are held in balance through carefully positioned courts, terraces, level changes and screened edges. The resulting architecture appears guarded from the street yet generous within. It is a composition of two boxes, two balcony frames, an open terrace and a central void, unified by light, air and climate.
PLANNING & SPATIAL EXPERIENCE
Approached from the south-west, the entrance leads directly into a living room that opens warmly into the dining area; the two spaces read almost as a single volume. Beside the dining zone, a double-height cutout positioned towards the north-west allows daylight and air down into the heart of the plan. The kitchen occupies the eastern side and remains visually tied to this shared centre, keeping the ground floor interactive rather than divided into separate rooms.
The remainder of the ground floor holds two bedrooms and a servant’s quarter, arranged around the shared living areas and internal courts. One bedroom occupies the quieter western corner near the front lawn, while the second is placed towards the north, with access to the north-eastern backyard. The servant quarter and service areas are consolidated towards the eastern edge, close to the kitchen. Outside, the lawn and parking extend along the south-western frontage, softening the transition between street and house. Living and dining spaces open towards the internal courts, so the interiors read as an extension of the landscape rather than a space held apart from it.
The first floor is planned for flexibility rather than a fixed programme. The daughter’s bedroom occupies the western side and opens directly onto a generous open terrace garden extending towards the south and south-east. Enriched with abundant greenery, planted edges and shaded seating areas, the terrace creates a private outdoor retreat where the bedroom remains closely connected to nature, daylight and fresh air while staying separate from the circulation below. Beside it sits a self-contained two-bedroom unit with independent access. Its bedrooms are positioned towards the northern side, while the kitchen and living-dining spaces extend along the eastern and south-eastern edges. Conceived as a rentable space, the unit allows the house to respond to changing family requirements or provide an additional source of income without requiring any structural alteration.
Corridors on this level are treated as light-filled viewing decks rather than simple circulation spaces. They frame views into the north-western double-height void and outward towards the open terrace, where layers of greenery soften the built form and create a calm visual backdrop. Together, the terrace garden, internal void and planted edges allow light, air and nature to flow across the floor, strengthening the relationship between the interior and the outdoors.
FAÇADE & ARCHITECTURAL EXPRESSION
The house’s clearest architectural statement is its terracotta jaali, drawn across the south-western elevation most exposed to the afternoon sun. Rather than a decorative addition, the screen operates as a second skin: it filters direct light, softens glare, reduces heat gain and preserves a degree of privacy without sealing the interiors off from the street beyond. Its pattern casts shifting shadows through the day, so that no room is lit quite the same way twice.
Working alongside the jaali, deep recessed cutouts and a shaded HPL roof protect the south-western frontage from the harshest exposure while still admitting controlled daylight deep into the plan. More protected openings towards the north-east bring softer light into the bedrooms and backyard-facing spaces. Together, these elements allow the box to present as solid from the outside while remaining airy within, the central tension the house is built to resolve.
THE DOUBLE-HEIGHT CUTOUT
Positioned beside the dining space along the north-western edge, the double-height cutout works as both an environmental device and a spatial pause. Its location allows it to receive comparatively controlled light while drawing fresh air into the centre of the house. It supports cross-ventilation between the more open north-eastern side and the screened south-western frontage, while also forming a visual link between the ground and first floors. From the terrace garden or the upper corridors, one can look down into this void and register how light and air move through the plan below.
TERRACE GARDEN
Reached directly from the daughter’s bedroom on the western side of the first floor, the terrace garden extends across the southern portion of the house. It functions as an informal extension of the room rather than a separate destination, equally suited to a quiet morning or an evening spent outdoors. Its open position gives the terrace access to the sky, while planting and adjoining built volumes provide varying degrees of shade and enclosure throughout the day. Planting across the terrace tempers heat gain at roof level and introduces a measure of calm to a floor otherwise given over to the rental unit and circulation. It reinforces an idea that runs through the whole house: greenery belongs on every level, not only at ground level.
Set along the north-eastern edge beside one of the ground-floor bedrooms, the backyard forms the house’s quieter register. Its relatively protected orientation allows it to bring softer daylight, ventilation and planting into the adjoining rooms while preserving the enclosure a bedroom requires. It also establishes a diagonal environmental connection with the south-western frontage, encouraging air to move across the depth of the plan. Glimpsed from the bedroom or the shared living spaces, the backyard changes character across the day as shadows shift, functioning less as leftover outdoor ground and more as a deliberate pause built into the plan.
ADAPTABILITY & TRANSITIONAL SPACES
Few spaces in the house are assigned a single, fixed use. The north-western double-height cutout can read as a moment of respite in daily life; the south-facing terrace garden serves as readily as an evening lounge as a morning retreat; corridors are treated as viewing decks rather than passageways; and the independent two-bedroom unit gives the house rental potential without disturbing its spatial logic. This capacity to shift use over time, rather than any single architectural gesture, allows the Permeable Box House to remain suited to its occupants as their needs change.
LIVING EXPERIENCE
Day to day, the house is defined less by any single room than by the movement between them. Softer light enters from the north-east and reaches the ground floor through the backyard and internal openings. As the day advances, the north-western cutout carries changing light into the dining area, while the terracotta jaali tempers the harsher south-western exposure into a filtered, patterned glow.
The north-eastern backyard and southern terrace garden offer two distinct registers of outdoor pause: one intimate, shaded and grounded, and the other elevated, open and more expansive. Conceived as a solid box and inhabited as a porous one, the house resolves its central premise not through spectacle but through a plan that keeps every space in dialogue with light, air and the ground it stands on.
