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Shareef house, designed
by Ds2 Architecture is built in Gudiyatham, a town in Vellore district of Tamil
Nadu, located centrally at a distance of 200 km between Bangalore and Chennai. The
house form is an adaptation of the prevalent residential archetype, which responds
to the local climate by being linear and having multiple courts. The planning
strategy of the house involves an arrangement of the primary spaces along the
east-west axis. The west end of the axis houses the entry court from the Bazaar
street side while passing through the central court in the private realm before
terminating at a court on the east posterior end which faces the conservancy
lane. The house stands out in comparison to the modern houses built in the
neighborhood by opening up to the outside.
The region endures a
hot and dry climate with seasonal monsoon showers. Situated in a busy and dense
neighborhood, the 440 sq.m site is one of the many linear plots sandwiched
between similar plots on the longer sides, while the shorter sides face the Bazaar
street to the front and a narrow conservancy lane to the rear. The client is a
3rd generation resident of the locality with local and international business
interests in Saudi Arabia. The family adheres to the Islamic traditional
lifestyle and maintains a strong sense of community by engaging in
philanthropic activities.
While the common practice was to make the house look inwards while
also restricting the interaction with the street to a minimum. This decision
comes from the love of client for his neighborhood and his philanthropic ways,
and we as architects couldn’t imagine it being any different from his vision.
Owing to the demands placed by the family’s Islamic lifestyle
and the client’s personality, the house is divided into two parts. This division
is clearly visible with the change in the use of materials. The one-third
anterior, which acts as a public domain where the client engages with the
members of the neighborhood (which he fondly refers to as his ‘Basthi’), is an
expression of exposed concrete holding a symbolic value of family strength and
permanence of their values. It’s rustic and robust in its monolithic appearance
of a form folding concrete slab bending and turning to the desired profile.
The two-third posterior becomes the private realm for the family which is an introverted mass achieved by thick exposed brick walls, functionally aiding to achieve thermal comfort. In contrast to the exterior, the interior displays a softer side with white walls, beige marble and warm wood.
