Being an artist himself, our client’s need for a simple house with more emphasis to the openness and green was extremely clear.
He asked for a house to relax and retreat;
a house to watch the sunlight and shadows dance to the rhythm of the day;
a house to observe the clouds frolic, hover and dance over the forest edge;
a house to watch the stars and the night’s glittering sky;
a house to have a spellbound appeal and a potential luxury escape;
a place to literally soak up into the landscape with a focus on effortless relaxation.
Basically, the client’s brief requested a simple, a creative paradise with honest materials.
He is a weird mix of extremely social and introvert at the same time. So, the house had to be adaptable to all situations. A huge party to spending a meditative evening alone.
There are many ways to sustainable living. There was a point where we and our client collided to the peak. Both believe that the first step to sustainable living is – living small. Living small is more energy efficient, more intimate living experience, easier to maintain and forces you to declutter.
Conceptually, this is a project of a residence stripped down to its bare necessities of what a house would mean. A SIMPLE, SENSIBLE & SUSTAINABLE living. The compact size of the house led to a multi-functional design. The house is undoubtedly designed to be inside-out green with literally no internal walls to the house. Each space is designed to flow into another and into the outdoors. This house though small, feels spacious because of the transparency through different spaces. The feeling of spaciousness is also because of the fact that you are so connected to the vast expanse of the forest beside the site. The most defining feature of the house is the massive amount of daylight entering the house through the skies. We tried getting in the glorify the cycle of the nature, i.e., the movement of the sun and moon, by having different sizes of windows and skylights from which the light passes and creates unique shadows and keeps changing with time. So the same space feels very different in the noon, evening and night.
Hubli, Karnataka, India has a tropical wet and dry climate. The stack ventilation helps mitigate the hot summers and the cross ventilation helps decrease the humid rains. In case one thinks living small is sobriety, think again! In the bathroom on the upper level, one can sit back and enjoy a panoramic view of lush green while bathing. Now that’s living small but in abundance. The bedroom on the ground floor is can be transformed into a living space by this retractable sliding-folding recycled wooden door. On the upper floor, the stairs extend into a bridge that takes us to an outdoor space with a lotus pond on the west side of the house.
All in all, this has been a strive to create a beautiful living