Excerpt: Banyan Tree House is a residence designed by the architectural firm Tales of Design Studio. Spatial planning of the house follows the site profile and is anchored around an existing banyan tree on the west of the site. A buffer radius of 11ft is kept around the banyan for building safety. This shaded area houses the garden seating. Floor plates of the house branch out through the site in an angular grid to form a series of interaction spaces and green niches. Spaces are positioned to establish a visual connection between themselves and the landscape without compromising privacy
Project Description
[Text as submitted by Architect] Located on a river bank in Mampully, Banyan tree house is intended for a young couple with two children. The plot constitutes an area of 630sqms and has an interesting L-shaped site profile.
Spatial planning of the house follows the site profile and is anchored around an existing banyan tree on the west of the site. A buffer radius of 11ft is kept around the banyan for building safety. This shaded area houses the garden seating. Floor plates of BTH branch out through the site in an angular grid to form a series of interaction spaces and green niches. Spaces are positioned to establish a visual connection between themselves and the landscape without compromising privacy.
Three-bedroom house is a single story-ed structure with a Mezzanine floor and has a built-up area of 2000 sqft. The neighborhood faces rising water levels during peak monsoons due to its proximity to the river. So as a precaution, built spaces are positioned on the highest point on the elevated site. This helped create a large sloping front yard, a buffer zone with fruit and flower bearing native vegetation to protect the house sound and dust from road traffic.
Geometrical shapes are carefully rendered into various elements of the design, thus creating a distinct design language. This visual continuity is established in aspects of flooring, Joinery, Interior furniture, skylights, and overall built form. Envelope of the house with its stilts, slopes, dynamic geometry, and projecting structural slabs gives a sculptural appeal to the home. Projecting slabs of varying degrees on the facade provide shading during summers and rain protection during monsoons.
Custom design is the core ideology of BTH. It is translated on inbuilt furniture, front door handle, railings, wall decor, artworks, and hand-made concrete bird ground cover. Doors, windows, brick jali, porotherm air vents, and skylights are strategically placed to enhance the indoor comfort level through cross-ventilation, stack effect, and natural lighting. Natural air flow and lighting help in reducing the household’s energy consumption.
The indoor courtyard becomes a part of dining. It is an added attraction as the dining area is the circulation core of the house. Space saving inbuilt niches are used for housing shelves, wardrobes, and washing hands. The house’s southern side has fewer openings and high sill windows to counter solar heat gain. Full height windows are mostly oriented towards the north to gain more indirect natural light in interiors.
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