An Average City Transmute House

An Average City Transmute House
© Niby Thomas

AN AVERAGE CITY TRANSMUTE HOUSE

Ego Design Studio

PHOTOGRAPHS
Niby Thomas

CATAGORY
Houses

MANUFACTURERS
Quick-step, B Life, Buildup Building Material Industries

INTERIOR CONTRACTORS
Space In Interiors

LANDSCAPE DESIGN
Down To Earth, Aarathi Binayak

PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Sudheesh S

DESIGN AND GRAPHICS
Aravind T

DESIGN
Niranjan C Warrier

SITE CORDINATION
Aiswarya Lekshmi, Joyal Jiju, Dilin K Jayan, Jithin Krishna, Vivek Daniel, Varsha Cleetus

DESIGN AND DETAILING
Shrilakshmi Chandran

DETAILING AND DRAWINGS
Anil Prasad Leela

LOCATION
Thiruvananthapuram, India

AREA
2550 ft²

YEAR
2020

GRAPHICS AND ILLUSTARTIONS
Ria Reji, Nithin C P

STRUCTURAL CONSULTANT
Krishnagadha S J

“An average city transmute (001)” is an exploration of revamping possibilities for any typical urban small sites with existing dilapidated concrete buildings.

An Average City Transmute House
© Niby Thomas
An Average City Transmute House
© Niby Thomas
An Average City Transmute House
© Niby Thomas

Anyone who wishes to buy a plot in the city of Trivandrum, is confronted with extremely small plots brimming with their old concrete houses with congested rooms and claustrophobic spaces with barely any openings.

The project presented a similar condition, a typical city plot- small 4-5 cents land, flanked by houses almost abutting the boundaries with absolutely no exterior space except the stipulated setbacks.

An Average City Transmute House
© Niby Thomas
An Average City Transmute House
© Niby Thomas

The attempt was to arrive at a possible architectural type of revamping an existing building through a solution that required minimum demolition while transforming it into a flamboyant city house.

While most interior walls were demolished to open up the available space, exterior walls were altered mostly only to increase window sizes, hence converting the available setback yards to small open spillover courts.

An Average City Transmute House
© Niby Thomas
An Average City Transmute House
© Niby Thomas
An Average City Transmute House
© Niby Thomas

The congested old building was opened up to create democratic spaces for today’s living.

The demolished structural walls were replaced by I beams and the new electrical system was encased in open conduits.

An Average City Transmute House
© Niby Thomas
An Average City Transmute House
© Niby Thomas

Most new structural and service interventions were exposed and painted in bright colors to exhibit the new additions to the old structure.

The southwest side with high heat gain being the only side with potential views was opened up, and a balcony was attached with a porous Corten steel sunscreen.

An Average City Transmute House
© Niby Thomas
An Average City Transmute House
© Niby Thomas
An Average City Transmute House
© Niby Thomas
An Average City Transmute House
© Niby Thomas

This sunscreen provided an image of the house to the city and a pixelated image of the city to the house.

An Average City Transmute House
© Niby Thomas
An Average City Transmute House
© Niby Thomas


An Average City Transmute House
Plan - Ground floor
An Average City Transmute House
Plan - First floor
An Average City Transmute House
Section - AA