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Architecture

23-07-2026

Text provided by the Architect

Away from the hustle bustle of the city life, carved into one of the many picturesque rock formations in the city of Hyderabad is a sprawling colony with lanes shaded by seasoned rosy trumpet trees, it’s roads sporadically lit by light penetrating a canopy of green, white, and pink and reflecting off of a bed of pink in the Spring. Nestled discreetly within a lane of ever changing houses is the home of a family of four with agrarian roots.

Inspired in equal parts by the Telugu movie ‘Maya Bazaar’ and the story of ‘Maya Sabah’ from the Hindu epic ‘Mahabharata’, the proposal attempts to re-establish the tactile relationships the family used to share with nature and elements and create a living house through use of metabolic materials. The solid periphery is punctuated with large openings, layers of cement carefully removed and replaced by a hand plastered lime skin mixed with salvaged brick and marble dust that comforts the residents from nature without ever disconnecting them from it. Reclaimed wood doors have supplanted aluminium counterparts, with the latter melted down to forge brass-coated fixtures. Stones, fallen leaves, rotting fruits and earth displaced during construction find purpose in external paving and pigments.

The manipulation of common materials like—brick, marble, earth, etc.—alters their form and perception, creating novel experiences marked by a perpetual tension between what one knows, sees, and feels. For example, in one of the rooms, the contemplation of a mature jackfruit tree's view converges with the room's color, inducing a sensation of being enveloped by the tree, unbeknownst to the fact that the surrounding hue has been extracted from the leaves and pulp of that very jackfruit tree. Similarly in another room, waste marble dust from quarries, local stockists, and site is used as pozzolan and in the final coat of a native Indian hydrophobic lime plaster whose recipe changes depending on the region to add lustre to this lime plastered floor that has been carefully compressed and buffed by hand, again giving a different experience of a “Marble floor”. Again the beauty of it is that a lot of the circularity practiced here is not new but rather obscured through lack of engagement in the day to day life, only existing as rituals or within lores told by those who still remember them.

Hyderabad,Telangana,India

Architects	:	Maqam
Area	:	5,775 sq. ft.
Year of Completion	:	2024
Website	:	https://www.instagram.com/maqam_archives/

Exterior view of Mayalogili by Maqam

Entrance Porch of Mayalogili by Maqam

Courtyard of Mayalogili by Maqam

The house is organised around a central courtyard sitting on top of a rain water tank, surrounded by a living room, home office, dining area, kitchen, staff quarters, bedrooms, library housing a 14 foot high bookshelf, and an adjoined study all rendered in various pigments harvested from the immediate landscape. The three storied house is finally crowned by a liminal pavilion enveloped by translucent marble skin with an adjacent semi-open shower area enclosed delicately by salvaged bamboo strips woven together. The idea was to create clusters of public, semi-public, and private spaces and use circulation and glazing as two means to offer privacy.

Dining of Mayalogili by Maqam

Lush landscape introduced around the house to provide respite from the rapidly growing colony along with water bodies create a micro climate around the house, allowing it to regulate the surrounding temperature naturally. Comprised mostly of native and occasionally non native plants collected by the clients, this landscape creates an ecosystem where humans and other than human species feel welcome and are cared for. Due to the slopes of the colony this particular house receives a large amount of storm water drainage from the surrounding areas. The design carefully negotiates the existing impenetrable bed and leaves more open ground for water percolation, vegetation, and incorporates an underground water storage tank that filters and stores up to 14,000 litres of water during the monsoons. The house is also equipped with technology that allows water to be harvested from air ensuring that there is a constant supply of drinking water without having to rely on wasteful existing technologies.

Kitchen of Mayalogili by Maqam

Family lounge of Mayalogili by Maqam

Library & Study of Mayalogili by Maqam

Mayalogili is an ambitious project that represents a unique fusion of latent vernacular technologies with contemporary discourse around sustainability principles or simply, lore, as it seeks to redefine the conventional urban villa. The design re-imagines the old, opaque, heavy, worn down building, obsessed with permanence as an open, translucent, nurturing space that embraces life and all that comes with it in an environmentally, socially, and financially conscious manner. The use of the word ‘lore’ is intentional, not for poetic effect, but rather as a comprehensive repository of information about a landscape which isn’t siloed like the modern understanding of the word ‘knowledge’. These lores are some of the most resilient, fluid, empowering, assimilating and plurality-embracing forms of knowledge present in the world and we as a studio intend to tap into them as we look to iterate upon present wholistic building practices.