In a quaint residential neighbourhood in Noida, the project is a single family home on a convenient 300 sq.m. plot. With a South-West facing orientation, the house looks directly into a small park that it faces, allowing a fair framing for the abundant greens directly in front.

Designed for a family of 4; inclusive of 2 parents and 2 kids, the brief was essentially a 5 bedroom setup, with 2 of those as guest beds for frequent visits from both sides of the respective parents. A post-covid brief also entailed requirements for decent sized study and/or work spaces as well; and a basement primarily for storage and lounging.

With the clients shifting in from a previous, high-rise apartment lifestyle,
the design leans towards a spatial intent that acknowledges the duality of interactions and isolations, and therefore offers ‘glimpses’, or interstitial interactions, between spaces;
The layout, consequently, unfolds as layers, with courts as the intermediaries;
a glimpse from, and a pause between, any two spaces.

The courts act as transitional buffers between all spaces, offering a second-handed interaction from one space to another, as well as their subsequent spill-outs, allowing another relationship between the open and the enclosed.

These courts thus become anchors for light and weather into their adjacent, islanded spaces, as well as the mediators for any and all dialogue between them.

Washed in shades and tints of the underlying hue overlaying the spaces, these courts, both water and verdant,
meander through the three stories of the house, directing the recital of it layers and spaces.

Much akin to the ‘Kavad’, a traditional Rajasthani wooden story box, where the project derives it conceptual abstraction from; the material selection, in parts, is also based off similar roots;
The Rajasthani Kavad is a traditional portable wooden box, with each wooden panel painted with snippets from an overarching tale. This "box of stories" is opened panel-by-panel to narrate the stories.

This idea of the ’Kavad’ ties into the project on two levels. The more literal is the panelled wooden frame that runs through the periphery of the south face of the plot, incidentally also its front facade. The house looks therefore, like a wooden box when viewed from any exterior angle.

The other, though, is the idea of the Kavad being a ‘box of stories, opened panel-by-panel’ for its narration. This ties into how the house also unfolds, one space at a time. Each space a different narration of its occupants. The courts here are as abstracted as the ‘panels’ of the story box, and so each court is a precursor (or a pause; ‘panel’) to the progressing narrative.

Limestones, Sandstones, and Lime Plasters become the primary recurrences, to awash the spaces into a cohesive hue.

At the transitional spaces, the stonework helps add intricacy to the pauses through synonymous patterns and inlays.

The supplemental recurrence is wood. With the built mass as 3 varying blocks of lime plaster, courts and punctures defining their individual silhouettes; wood envelopes these monoliths as a second skin, a porous cushion of privacy between the context and the built-form. The operable wood skin wraps the lime dyed volumes at their unfolds, deterring the south sun with a subsequent drama of light and shade on its inside.