Team: Shravan Pradeep, Megha Nanaiah, Saroja Sethuraman, Shruthi Jayaraman, Pragati Somani

Photo Credits: Yash R Jain

Text Credit: Niharika KC

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'A house without a courtyard is like a man without a soul. The courtyard is the soul of the house. ; Abdel - Wahed - El Wakeel'

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The House of Ridges is a 3-bedroom home located in a dense residential urban fabric of West Bangalore. The client’s brief was a modest one with a requirement of the spaces needed namely: a 2 bedroom unit on the ground floor which was to be independent of their 3 bedroom home to be located on the first and second floors. The absence of a strict list of requirements allowed us to weave these list of spaces into two large volumes which sat atop the 2 bedroom unit.

The location of the site in the dense residential layout had limitations in the opportunities to open out and connect with natural greens and nature both physically and visually. Hence the home was designed with the intent of giving its occupants the feeling of being on the ground by the integration a lot of green within the home which reflected the clients’ appreciation for nature.

The volume of the house was firstly divided into two halves of which one volume was maintained as a double height housing the living and dining anchored by a courtyard and the second volume was further subdivided to house the kitchen, bedrooms and an informal living / entertainment space. Each of the volumes was capped with the ridges of the Mangalore tiled roof. The green epicentre of the double height living-courtyard-dining volume thus created an opportunity for the private bedroom spaces in the second volume to connect into this volume without challenging the privacy of the spaces.

The façade of the home was designed with a jali screen made of hollow terracotta blocks. The porosity of the screen allowed for ample light to flow into the home and a buffer space with greenery served as balconies providing ample transition to the living and bedrooms within.

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https://abditory5555.wordpress.com/2024/08/21/the-ridge-house/

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PUBLISHED ON ARCHDAILY 2024