Box | Residence

The site is located at kadavanthara, between the congested urban layouts of Ernakulam, Kerala. It’s a rectangular corner plot with a road on south and west side, a house in the east and a vacant plot in the north. The client’s brief was to have a spacious house utilising the maximum space available with ample amount of light and ventilation and the floor plan should be based on vastu following the dimensions.

The floor layout was designed with sit-out and entrance door from north-west corner, leading to the rectangular living room, with the dining room on the right and kitchen in south-east corner and a bedroom in south-west corner and a common toilet accessible from dining space too. The staircase from the dining room leads to the first floor living space and master bedroom on the south-west corner, a bedroom room on the north-west corner and a balcony accessible from upper living on the south-east corner.

In an urban scenario, the challenging part is to bring in maximum daylight and ventilation; it becomes even more challenging if the major part of the house is exposed to south and west direction. Here, the rooms in west  was provided with horizontal windows with box shade around in order to reduce the heat gain inside the house and will all indirect lighting all though the season. The staircase wall in the west side was recessed inside and was provided with bigger window and a mesh covering as a shade to cut the direct sun rays inside. The box shades and the mesh covering completes with west façade. The south façade was provided with individual vertical windows with box shading in first floor. To invite maximum indirect daylight from the east, bigger windows with required shades are provided.

The interior are finished with a beige, white and brown colour palette. All the floor area was finished with a single shade of beige vitrified tiles to make the space look comparatively bigger. The whole idea was to provide only required and space saving furniture’s. The wall between the living and dining room was provided with an in-built space saving unit with TV on to the living room and crockery on to the dining room. An L-shaped kitchen counter with top and bottom units is finished with beige and brown laminates. All the bedrooms are provided with a bed and required wardrobe.

The exterior was finished with greyish colour palette in white, black and magenta shades. The shade combination enhances with exterior finish from the surrounding environment.