ANTHILL HOUSE
Kaushal TaTiya Architects
ARCHITECTS
Kaushal TaTiya Architects
LEAD ARCHITECTS
Ar.Kaushal Suresh Tatiya, Ar. Sweety Muttha
PHOTOGRAPHS
Avesh Gaur
AREA
7000 m²
YEAR
2026
LOCATION
Ahilyanagar, India
CATEGORY
Houses
English description provided by the architects.
The site is located in Ahilyanagar town of Maharashtra, with a design brief of 7,000 sq feet, while the house had to be designed for the hot and dry climate, which responds carefully to extreme temperatures, intense sunlight, and low humidity.
The design focuses on reducing heat gain, improving natural ventilation, and creating comfortable indoor spaces with minimal dependence on mechanical cooling systems.
CONCEPT
An anthill is not merely a mound of earth; it is a highly intelligent Ecosystem shaped through instinct, climate response, collective movement, and layered spatial organization.
The project draws from this natural intelligence to create architecture that feels grown rather than constructed — porous, adaptive, thermally responsive, and deeply rooted to the earth.
The architecture emerges as a terrain-like form where spaces are carved and interconnected, much like the chambers and passages within an anthill. Instead of imposing geometry onto the site, the built form appears to rise organically from the landscape, with alternating stepped terraces resonating with
ARCHITECTURE AS A LIVING ORGANISM
The house is conceived as an introvert form with a solid mass of brick, which stands still and bold from the outside.
The building behaves like an anthill: breathing through voids and vents, regulating light and temperature naturally, evolving through interconnected spatial systems. The form avoids rigid boundaries and instead promotes continuity between inside and outside.
POROSITY & MOVEMENT
Movement becomes experiential rather than linear with skylights, Jaalis, etc. Like ants navigating through chambers, users move through compressed and expanded spaces, courtyards, and shaded passages.
The Living area has an extended courtyard which draws in natural light and ventilation with a water cascade, which serves for passive cooling.
Spatial sequencing includes: narrow transitional passages, Jaalis for ventilation, sudden open communal volumes, pockets of light, and hidden contemplative spaces. The circulation itself becomes the architecture.
CLIMATIC INTELLIGENCE
Anthills maintain internal temperature through passive ventilation. This principle translates into: thermal brick jaali walls, stack ventilation shafts and skylights, earth berming, shaded cavities, and perforated skins for airflow.
The building reduces dependence on mechanical cooling by using the bricks as insulation. They facilitate cross-ventilation, encourage stack effect cooling, and bring a rhythmic flow of natural light deep into the interior.
MATERIAL LANGUAGE
Materials express rawness and tactility: exposed bricks, textured concrete, terracotta, lime plaster, locally sourced stone.
Surfaces feel eroded, layered, and hand-shaped, echoing the natural formation of an anthill. The palette remains monochromatic and earthy, allowing light and shadow to become primary visual elements.
SPATIAL STRATEGY
Public vs Private Chambers, Inspired by the hierarchy within an anthill: communal spaces become larger central cavities, private spaces branch into quieter peripheral zones, service functions integrate invisibly into jaali walls and earth pockets.
Each bedroom is designed considering the intuitive usage of space with wooden furniture to go beyond. Each bedroom has two types of windows, one for a small window for cross ventilation, and the second is a balcony to go out and enjoy the distant landscapes.
LIGHT STRATEGY
Light enters selectively through: punctured skylights, courtyards, perforated facades. This creates an atmosphere where light feels discovered rather than exposed.
FORMAL EXPRESSION
The form may appear: mound-like, clustered, eroded by wind, partially submerged into the ground with the cantileved 12 feet slabs supported by the bricks in compression.
Instead of iconic geometry, the architecture gains identity through texture, shadow, and terrain integration with alternating balconies forming the traditional concepts of Chhats.
Inspired by the intelligence of the anthill, the project explores architecture as an organic ecosystem rather than a static object.
Spaces are carved like chambers within the bricks — interconnected, climatically responsive, and shaped through movement, light, and collective inhabitation.
The architecture emerges from the ground as a living terrain, blurring the boundary between landscape and built form.
