The Walls and Vaults House / LIJO.RENY.architects

Architects: LIJO.RENY.architects
Area: 296.4 ft2
Year: 2015
photographs: Praveen Mohandas, Suneesh Suresh

January 26, 2016

Text description provided by the architects. The modest brief called for a restrained single storey residence for a family of six that included the client’s parents as well as their kids. The project sits in a location that experience contrasting climatic situations with long heavy monsoons and scorching sun during the remaining months. This helped model the core design principles for this project.

The built form of the house was effortlessly tucked into the gentle slope of the site to reduce the scale of the house being visible from the road that abuts the three sides of the site.

Furthermore, carefully chosen and strategically used materials and colours which include the stone wall, exposed concrete, natural stone flooring and teakwood along with lush tropical vegetation subdue the physical presence of the house and blend it well with the surroundings.

The layout consist of two primary linear bays of vaulted rooms that are separated by a partly open to sky landscaped court in the centre, containing a connecting passage, that runs throughout the entire length in it. Two enclosed open to sky landscaped courts abut the primary bays on its external sides respectively.

Most of the externally visible walls are built with locally sourced granite in a masonry technique used locally.

These stone walls that enclose open to sky landscaped courts, acts as thermal barriers while providing necessary privacy to the desired spaces resulting in a well protected house with comfortable interior spaces both in the punishing rain and the burning sun.