Sameep Padora & Associates

Fort House

Fort House
© Edmund Sumner

FORT HOUSE

Sameep Padora & Associates

MEP CONSULTANT
R.n. Joshi

STRUCTURAL CONSULTANT
Facet

DESIGN TEAM
Viresh Mhatre, Harsha Nalwaya, Aanoshka Choksi, Mythili Shetty

AREA
1300 M²

PHOTOGRAPHS
Edmund Sumner

AREA
1300 M²

YEAR
2014

LOCATION
Ambavaram, India

CATEGORY
Houses

Text description provided by architect.

The primary program brief from the couple who owned the house was a desire to build a house that was to be their ‘fortress from the cacophony of the world outside’ while creating a sizable space to be used frequently for entertaining friends and guests.

Fort House
© Edmund Sumner
Fort House
© Edmund Sumner

Referencing forts as a primer the formal development of the project attempts to balance a need for privacy/protection from the outside while developing layered and tiered open spaces for social engagement.

A hybrid courtyard that is both internalised and external and hence becomes a container for the massive entertainment space required by the client.

Fort House
© Edmund Sumner
Fort House
© Edmund Sumner

PRIVACY SCALE

Our first effort was to distance the notion of privacy from that of scale. Formally the boundary wall becomes part of the three parallel limestone clad wall set that configure program between them and ascend in height as they gain distance from the street scaling the house down to human proportions.

WEARING THE COURTYARD INSIDE OUT

This need for privacy and climatic sheltering on the south side street (to mitigate the harsh southern sun) creates a largely impervious facade.

Fort House
© Edmund Sumner
Fort House
© Edmund Sumner
Fort House
© Edmund Sumner

The solidity of this construct is completely obliterated once inside the house by sectional overlapping and linked multilevel a hybrid courtyard that is both internalised and external and hence becomes a container for the massive entertainment space required by the client.

This void/court cuts the through the sectional width of the house becoming a programmatic connect for the independently accessible strands of private (family) and public (work &entertainment) spaces that intersect in the physical centre of the house.

Fort House
© Edmund Sumner
Fort House
© Edmund Sumner


Fort House
Ground Floor Plan
Fort House
Site Plan


Fort House
Section
Fort House
Section


Fort House
Detail
Fort House
Section
Fort House
Section

Sameep Padora & Associates
T +91 22 26400557
Sameep Padora & Associates
22C, New Kantwadi Scheme, Off, Perry Cross Rd, Pali Hill, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400050, India