Cest La Vie

A Second homes are about creating an oasis from the hectic pace of urban city life. A site blessed with vegetation and seasonal lake provided the perfect setting for this project. At the entrance were a clump of trees that provided for a grand entry and also created just the necessary buffer for the house from the Main Street. The driveway snaked its way past the canopy of trees to the entrance/arrival court where you are received by a curved stone wall. Designing in tropics is about creating the right balance of open and closed spaces. The sun and other elements can be unforgiving in these conditions. The house has been designed in clusters of program held together with a strong circulation spine with the most of the facilities addressing the pool in the centre of the house. The living dining pavilion is a glass box which has a deck extension onto the pool on one side and private lawn on the other side bound by the arrival court curved stone wall. This court is further enhanced with a water body fed by a gargoyle that emerges from the curved wall. The guest pavilion opposite the living pavilion houses 4 bedrooms with their attached toilets. The pool bar and outdoor dining flanks one end of the pool while three spouts edge the other end. Directly above the outdoor dining is the master bedroom with its attached bathroom. The plunge pool attached to this room is created as a getaway for the client and overlooks the lake. The children's room is designed as a concept of box within a box and is cantilevered. The wooden box sits inside the glass box. At the far end of the pool is the jacuzzi and sunken seating which overlooks the main lawn which has the tennis court at the end of the property. The games pavilion is adjacent to the jacuzzi area. The furniture has been kept aesthetically appealing but importantly practical and strong emphasis on needing less maintenance. Surfaces are kept to withstand the severity of the climate. The use of natural stone, natural wood, lighting which is led driven and abundance of landscape allows the bungalow to be endorsed as ecofriendly. Our design process is about creating moments...elemental and episodically unfolding. The circulation within the house and spaces between functions need to follow a sequence of activity. The volume of spaces is again defined by the function. The large open spaces, fluidity and transparency between spaces, the idea of natural landscape interspersed with built form are all metaphorical for the client’s nature. Cest La Vie was done in Atelier Design N Domain. Partners are-Ar Shobhan Kothari and Ar Anand Menon Credits for photography-Sebastian Zachariah Completion Year : 2016 ; Area- 14,000 sqft Location : Alibagh Web site : www.adnd.in.