Maa by Sharan Architects+Design

In an urban context where adjoining houses are necessarily attached to each other at the side walls to form a linear succession, this project seeks to vindicate a different way of engaging with the surrounding.

The client wanted a house with large parking space and voluminous rooms which invites ample daylight. Given the size of the plot, we decided to use ground floor as parking space and started planning from the first floor. That gives us a beautiful semi-open staircase which takes us from ground floor to first floor main entrance. You will notice that the staircases are not aligned on top of each other and to make it even more interesting we have designed a main door which has 20’ height. The main door is visible from the first-floor passage.

The idea was to design a house which has less carbon footprint and keep the material palette natural and minimal. As you can see it in the façade, there are aluminium baffles given outside 2nd and 3rd floor bedroom windows. It gives a character to the façade and also reduces the view from the surrounding neighbourhood without reducing the window opening as the house is located in a densely populated area.

In the façade we have used exposed R.C.C. ceilings. To balance the texture of exposed concrete we have used kota stone in the flooring which adds warmth to the space. Public areas are designed with neutral colour palette to balance it we have used colours in private areas. As you can see, we have used piccolo in bathrooms and each bathroom has a different coloured piccolo according to the user. That colour is carry forwarded into bedrooms with natural colour palette which makes the space lively.