Abhimanu Mathur's House

Status- Unbuilt, 2016

Location- Sector-44, Noida

 

The brief was to provide a family, with two young boys, a house that would offer them flexibility, privacy, engagement and a link with the outdoors. The idea was to take the staircase out of the shaft like the volume it usually occupies in most plotted houses and uses it as an element to string together a series of spatial experiences that seamlessly travel upwards. 

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The staircase was broken up into a series of flights that do not sit one above the other and acts as dynamic tying elements between various spaces. The movement on the stairs at each level is integrated into each space they are attached to and into the overall experience and spatial narrative of the house.

 

The living volumes were then attached to the stairs, and  thought of as masses that stepped back from the front, creating levels of terraces.  This allows for communication across the South-east façade from the garden to the top floor, and are framed / enclosed within a shading lattice that creates the notion of enclosure while still allowing for an outdoor space that responds to the
large park the site faces.

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A fourth element, that announces itself very prominently at the roof in the form of a half vault, is a shaft that travels along the North-East wall, through the centre of the building, drawing light, to what would have been the darkest, spot of the house, from the roof
level, down to the sunken, kitchen level, and lighting up the stairs as it descends, bringing in a dramatic play of light and shadow and volume.  This opens up and lightens the interior of the house and along with the dispersed stairs and so ties the 5 levels of the house rather effortlessly.

 

The house was about exploring and creating space, and not packing it full. But rather making spaces, that talked to each other and made opportunities for conversation, for calm, for curiosity, for a surprise, for light, for shadow, and for life.