The 15,000 sq.ft. bungalow stands peerless, amidst low-rise apartment stacks. And for that very reason, the house is an introverted built mass, of brick and occasional RCC, such that all the internal spaces look constantly into its many green pockets. The front façade comprising of a parking space and a full-time, home-run office effectively walls off the exterior from the interior courtyards.
Team Usine’s objective was to endow the home’s corners with equal measures of beauty and purpose for their client. They hence implanted carefully proportioned water-bodies and pergola seating within the layout.
Experiment with a lot of patterning details beginning from the compound wall with wire brushed plaster to the inviting alternate coursed brick columns in the foyer. The main entrance, along a lotus-laden water-body and floating slab with the barrier wall resulting in some edgy shadow lines.
The house interior is floored majorly in gray Kotah stone.
The living room, housed under a pitched wooden roof, is given minimal artificial treatment. This room relies on abundant natural lighting and is provided only with a chic chandelier and pedestal light combination for when the sun sets down.
Heart of the house: a black granite human figure emerging from a stone block, by Dilip Sompura, plays against the perfectly chiselled background of carved-out regular bricks. This dramatic bay overlooks an east-facing, multipurpose entrance court with a view to a lush gathering of plants around a water-body.
On the flipside of this courtyard lies a north-facing court that is essentially the garden puncturing into the built layout, thus rendering an appealing inward-looking to this quadrant of the house as well.
The powder toilet continues the brick narrative albeit with a contemporary twist; burnt bricks in Flemish bond and in a 45° skew lend a novel gray vibe to this small space.
Diffused north light floods the family living and dining space which in turn opens up into a pergola-shaded swing sit-out banked by a wire brushed plaster wall and a brick screen wall against a finely textured gray terrazzo floor.
The master bedroom has a basic, unobtrusive aesthetic with a bed back painting done by Bose Krishnamachary. The bath area combines both indoor and outdoor showers.
YAHVI, in Hindi, means heaven and earth conjoined. And with its abundant natural light, and covert green spaces with shallow pools of water, it is indeed one for the family that calls it their home
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