Excerpt: Weekend Home at Maale by Studio Roots is an architecture project that attempts to create enclosures within nature by blurring the boundaries in the built-scape, weaving through spaces that redefine the idea of courtyards. Perceived as an ‘unconfined set of spaces’, an exposed brick wall winds through the three major independently built units: a pavilion, library, and a bedroom.
Project Description
[Text as submitted by architect] Set amidst the Sahyadris, the Weekend home at Maale sought to explore architecture in a hilly terrain for a limitless open space. The context presented an enchanting site with 100 acres of farmland. For the best viewpoint, a spot of an acre was chosen carefully – with Mulshi Dam backwaters at front and a hill at the rear. An attempt to create enclosures within nature by blurring the boundaries in the built-scape, the design weaves through spaces that redefine the idea of courtyards.
Perceived as an ‘unconfined set of spaces’; an exposed brick wall winds through the three major independently built units: a pavilion, library, and a bedroom.
Concept
Conventional Built & Open Relationship: Spaces are defined by their boundaries. One gets a definite sense of ‘entering’ by crossing into the enclosure. Thus, becoming a spectator to the ‘outside.
Inserting Green In Builtscape: Spaces like courtyard houses are an effective intervention for bringing nature within the enclosure. In this case, the open space inside serves as a connection between zones of the enclosure, while being a separate entity from the landscape outside.
Built Interspersed In Open: The contours of Maale were a blank canvas for the designers to paint their idea into: A design that does not abide the concept of boundaries. (Enclosures within nature.)
Establishing Relationship Within The Environs: The Site engages a pavilion, the main celebration area along with an elevated bedroom and library unit. To step into this weekend home is to ‘step outside’ of the conventional idea of a house. A space ‘unbound’ allowing one to navigate within open spaces.
A continuous exposed brick wall leads one right through the entrance like a thread that weaves the independently built forms, while revealing glimpses of limitless open space.
The Design
The Courtyard that Binds: As one explores the indoors, each unit separately opens up the vista in a most dramatic manner while simultaneously the flanked sides engage one into the courtyard that binds together all these masses.
Purity in Material Expression: Staying true to nature became the key determinant in pursuing a purist approach through material expression. Composite structures (Exposed R.C.C., Steel and Glass, basalt masonry, free standing exposed brick walls) were devised to explore this idea further.
Structural Exploration: The main entity of the slab is a beamless and column – free space of 135.28 sq. m. with an overhang of three meters on all sides giving a buoyant effect. The slab tapers upwards along the projection, dispensing a visual lightness to the structure.
A ‘chevron pattern’ was used as a binding element in key materials- be it concrete scaffolding, granite flooring or teakwood furniture. Thus, the concept of ‘disjunct built’ interspersed in nature with a purist expression and simplicity blends into the quaint verdure of the Western Ghats. Reminiscent of ‘Yugen’: a Japanese concept about a deep awareness of the universe triggered by the profound emotional response to the spatial environment.
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