Four Walls Pavilion
FOUR WALLS PAVILION
Studio Mango
ARCHITECTS
Studio Mango
LEAD ARCHITECTS
Utsav Jain, Fergus Davis
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
Idea Design
GENERAL CONTRACTOR
Sanctuary By Aarth
PHOTOGRAPHS
Geomorph Studio
AREA
130 m²
YEAR
2026
LOCATION
Chennai, India
CATEGORY
Installations & Structures, Public Architecture
English description provided by the architects.
Four Walls is a lakeside pavilion in a coastal site south of Chennai, India.
Designed by London-based architects Studio Mango, the building forms the endpoint of a linear park within Sanctuary by Aarth, a new residential development for which the practice also designed the villas.
Constructed as the first element within the wider masterplan, the client requested a building simple in its conception but capable of serving several programmatic requirements.
A gallery space was necessary to display the villa designs, while a larger space was required for gatherings. The pavilion would frame visitors' first encounter with the lake, around which the development is organized.
The architects started with a simple concept, to employ the minimum number of architectural gestures to define the different programmatic requirements.
Each of the four walls is conceived to shape the visitor's experience, only revealing the lake at the culmination of the journey. On arrival, a wall opens to the walkway, drawing visitors within.
A second wall runs parallel, forming a linear, more focused gallery space. Two curving walls then compress the route, drawing visitors around to reveal the lake's beauty for the first time. Here, a large semi-circular space offers sheltered views across the water.
These simple architectural gestures are brought to life through laterite, a local, iron-rich stone known for its striking red color and natural variation. It is a material found abundantly across South India, where it is used commonly as a building block.
The walls rise from a red concrete plinth, which extends to form a cast-in-situ bench overlooking the water. Gravel borders mediate between material junctions, giving a deep-rooted feeling to the four walls.
Above, a thin, exposed concrete canopy alternately rests on the walls and is supported by slender columns, lifting it away from the structure below. Shafts of light cut through the space, striking the curved walls and drawing visitors towards the lake beyond.
The project champions locally sourced materials and craft. Kadappa, a dark grey limestone, weaves a path up to the pavilion where visitors are greeted by a water feature at the entrance, anchoring the building within its coastal context.
Granite boulders, relocated from across the site, are semi-submerged in the water, holding the walkway's edge.
Studio Mango is an architecture and design practice based in Shoreditch, London. Formed in 2022 between friends Fergus Davis and Utsav Jain, the practice works across scales and geographies, from carefully detailed homes in London and the UK countryside to larger civic and residential projects in India and China.
Across all projects, there is a focus on quality of space, celebration of light, and a deep appreciation of materiality.
Every project is informed by its unique context, whether that be something specific within a client's brief, a historical detail or the cultural influences on a site.
Studio Mango were recently included in the Architecture Foundation's 'New Architects 5', the definitive guide to Britain's emerging architectural talent.
