It is easy to forget that this house is in the
suburbs of Coimbatore. With a fusion of a contemporary-tropical mood, a black, white
& red centric minimal design - this bachelor’s pad is an ideal amalgamation
of the client’s brief. The client, who is a 75-year-old retired bachelor who
came with an eclectic design brief, 15-year-old cane furniture set (a sofa,
tables, lounge chairs, a bed base) and a love for plants.
The design revolves around the plants he
intended to populate the house with and the handsome furniture set. The
principal design motif is derived from this set and enunciated through
highlighting elements. While the bottom one-third of the door is flat, the top
two-thirds of it is Fluted to imitate the cane furniture. The entire door is
painted a beautiful spice red. The colour is a contrast to the set, but the
similarity in form creates a visual language between the shell and what fills
it. The red with black and white form the holy trinity of a colour palette that
bases the warm cane tone.
The partition wall between the kitchen and
living was removed, making the plan more open and spacious, bringing some
flexibility to the layout. The common spaces in the house are segregated by the
flooring and the false ceiling. The spine of the house is
set by black tile with white epoxy in the flooring, white walls, and a layered
false ceiling which is a combination of a Fluted spice red ceiling and a plain
white one. The triad of these colours forms a backdrop to the rich green of the
plants.
The flooring, despite being entirely of the
same black tile, is segregated by well thought out tile patterns, which helps
bring a distinction to the layout. Upon entrance, the tile and the red recessed
ceiling immediately direct one's eyes to the balcony which has a beautiful view
of the mountains outside. To the left of this visual corridor is the living
room and to the right is the open kitchen with a breakfast counter. This open layout
is ideal setting to host evening soirees.
The kitchen is partially modular and partially
built on-site. The lower half is modular kitchen from Nolte, while the upper
half of the kitchen is built on-site continuing the Fluted and plain pattern.
The master bedroom is simple, with orchestrated cane furniture, IKEA wardrobes
and black and white details. The habitat of the guest bedroom is a thick
mattress placed on the floor with a bedside lamp and the choice of plant for
that month. The room also doubles up as a space for storage or a study, as and
when required. The bathrooms use black, white, and grey tiles with pink epoxy
to tie the entire house together.
The essence of this 75 sq.m. apartment lies in
its intervention of providing the client with a biophilic setting where he can
easily reorganise his plants around the house. The planning of the house gives
him a free rein to be able to move them out into the sun and shuffle them on
the way back in. This evolving layout along with the colour palette helps
achieve the intended brief with a different aesthetic every time. The design
aims to bring about a minimal, low-maintenance home with a quirky flair on a
constrained budget.
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