Garden house , gets the name from the concept of the roof garden in the 1200 sqft residence located in a dense neighborhood of North Chennai. The house is located in a north facing – plot of dimensions 19′ x 63′. The house is flanked by buildings to west and south, access road to the north and an empty plot to the east.
One enters the house though the entrance court , and a shaded foyer space. The ground floor has a small guest/study room along with a powder room. The living, dining and the kitchen share a common volume. The storage spaces, toilets and staircase is located along the west wall and large windows towards the east.
The narrow plot and the surrounding buildings posed the issue of privacy and need for lighting/ ventilation in the first floor. Hence the design necessitated an inward looking plan around the garden court which act as the source of light and ventilation with huge windows opening into it from the bedrooms.
The bay window placed asymmetrically to the right balances the entrance porch shaded by the cantilever.
The east wall with jali panels visually ties up the two volumes at the top and provide privacy for the bedrooms and garden above.
The living, dining and the kitchen is enclosed in a single volume with a minimal color palette of whites , grays and brown edges.
Built-in benches are placed along the window sides, which also provides storage space below.
The storage shelves are made from thin ferrocement slabs and painted white.
The 3′ setback along the east side act as a small garden space.
The dining bench is integrated with the wall along the window side.
The staircase is a folded slab cantilevered from the west wall, with balusters fixed to the sides.
Custom – designed sofa with storage cabinets on the sides and below the seating.
The puja room and store room has a 4 shuttered folding door.
The material palette across the room is kept to white marble for floors, white laminate with walnut edges for cabinet shutters, grey laminate with edges for kitchen shutters, granite – leather finished for the staircase and polished finish for the kitchen counter.
The balusters are made of MS painted black and teak wood handrail.
The staircase lead to the landing with a cabinet and space for artwork above.
Niches with spotlights are provided along the stair wall with marble cladding inside.
The passage space act as a secondary study with a writing table on side and a reading nook on the other side.
The reading nook overlooking into the roof garden.
The small sized windows with thin cudappah sunshade, opening into the garden from the passage.
double thick granite edge coping for the window sill.
Huge corner windows from the bedroom opening into the garden.
the east wall with the jali provide privacy for the bedrooms for the neighboring buildings in the future
the overhangs protect the windows from sun and rain.
Built-in ledge on the window sill are cost effective seating furniture.
The detail of grey lines are carried throughout doors, switch plates and window frames.
Wardrobes are fitted with sliding shutters
The bay window facing the road has the support frame in the middle leaving the corners free to enhance the openness.
The corner windows facing the roof garden have built-in benches
The grill patterns are consistently carried thoughout the house, for varying sizes of windows, staircase balusters, grill gates etc.
Client: Mr.Venkatesh.
Period: 2016-2017
Cost of construction : 38 lakhs
Design team : Rijesh K, Niha Amina, Varsha Chella
Contractor team: Mr. Sekar, Balaji, Saravanan, Kesavan.
Interior carpentry team: Mr. Sudhakar
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