top of page

Exploring the Contradictory Ideas of a Home & a House

Updated: May 16, 2020

A Home In Between By Ego Design Studio

This project explores the contradictory ideas of a home and a house, and the duality of the modern residence where it tries to coexist.


The residence was done for a lottery seller, his wife and the 5 year old son, with a grandmother visiting regularly. The client had limited budget and a small sloping site with roads on three sides.

The personal private interiority and the imagery skin that contains it, the exteriority. Each space accompanied by its temperature and activity buffer (the court and the level navigating steps) forms an individual's personal activity space when needed, and enlarges into a larger spatial construct of the family space when required.

Picture courtesy: Ego Design Studio

Interioriy (Home): A multi functional interiority explores a personal spatial construct transforming over time and with the user on a daily basis, thereby attaching itself with each user on a personal note, forming the idea of HOME


Exteriority (House): The exterior, the skin that engulfs this idea of home, is an imagery object derived from the boundary conditions, individualistic in its formal character and contextual in its voidal response to the site boundaries.


Picture courtesy: Ego Design Studio

Interiority (Home):

In a time where the names of the rooms determine the activities inside, this project is a exploration of space as a construct between activities, time and memory. Every space has a time and activity based existence. Each space accompanied by its temperature and activity buffer (the court and the level navigating steps) forms an individual's personal activity space when needed, and enlarges into a larger spatial construct of the family space when required. This personalization acts as a binder in memory formation and increases personal association with the space. These little niches build the idea of a home in each user in their own personal way.


Picture courtesy: Ego Design Studio

Exterioriy (House)

The Skin, the exteriority, the outer facade forming the house, is but responses to the nearby boundary conditions and the local climate. Each facade responds to the immediate neighborhood through its porosity

The South side is agricultural land which has the possibility of staying as an unaffected open area for a few more years, The facade has interlock brick wall below with specific openings framing the agricultural land at different levels and the main door opening to the same area

The North side is a small vacant land with the proposal for a new building, which will lead to reduced views/ privacy and well as reflected heat from the south facing walls, so the whole of northern facade is made porotherm brick , porous along the common areas and solid with windows with curtains along the cooking and sleeping spaces.

The frontage faces the vehicular road. The face is the least porous, with the side entry door and the ventilation porotherm jalli window. A void carved out of the stark white solid, creates a subtle verandah space recessed within the front façade.

The back yard facing the west is tree covered and hence has a large verandah and a common sitting space. Opening to the greens. These walls for the skin and the identity of the built form, modest in its content, while strong in presence among the ornate houses around.


Picture courtesy: Ego Design Studio

Thermal Comfort

The built form is aligned in East West direction, with its longer sides towards North and South. Major openings also along the North and south directions. The house is completely porous allowing ample wind movement,

Coupled with above factors and its materiality, the house has a temperature condition of about 5-7 degrees lesser than the surrounding houses.

Materials used were sourced from nearby areas, the interlocking block company next door (walkable distance) providing majority of the wall materials, was manually carried to the site as needed

POROTHERM BLOCKS - thermally insulated porotherm bricks acted as a heat buffer along with its courts and stepped corridors.

Reused Doors- Old wooden doors where sourced from a nearby areas to fit in the requirements of this house.


Picture courtesy: Ego Design Studio

Project: A Home In Between Location: Chathannoor, Kollam, Kerala

Firm: Ego Design Studio

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/egodesignstudioofficial/ Principal Architects: Niranjan C Warrier, Sudheesh Sudharman, Jayaram GS, Abhilash UA, Jerry Sam, Aravind T  Landscape: Aarati Binyak, Aromal R I  Photography: Prasanth Mohan (Running Studios)



325 views0 comments

Comments


Blog

bottom of page