ujarati practice Matharoo Associates has engineered

the traditional Indian concept of joint-family living for

the 21st century. Designing a home for the families of

two brothers and their ageing parents in Ahmedabad,

the architects have found a way to balance family life

and family business within one plan, which is defined

by a central fissure that brings together spaces for

both communal and private activities, like a puzzle.

Instead of puzzle pieces, however, the parts of

this house are closer in spirit to tectonic plates. With

plenty of gravitas, the cubed façade of chiselled, locally

sourced Kandla grey stone rises like a solidly sculpted

and impenetrable rock face – yet inside, recessed

windows and multiple courtyards filter plenty of light

into the house’s core.

The ‘inward-looking’ design of the house protects

its inhabitants from the chaos of the outside world

and a busy road running close by on the edge of the

site. It creates a private interior world, with its

own vernacular of natural materials, surfaces and

sculptural eccentricities.

Inspired by the clients’ father, a structural engineer

with an adventurous spirit, Matharoo Associates

challenged some of the house’s functional elements

to perform in unexpected ways – starting at the double-

height front door where seven bands of concrete move

and pivot together to open up entry into the house.

‘We like taking mundane things and adding a little

delight,’ says Trisha Patel, senior architect at Matharoo

and lead architect on the project. She jokes that the »

G

RIGHT, THE LIVING AREA AND

DINING ROOM ARE DIVIDED

BY A SCULPTURAL STAIRCASE

MADE OF SUPER-SLIM

CONCRETE COLUMNS

BELOW, THE DOUBLE-HEIGHT

FRONT DOOR FEATURES

SEVEN PIVOTING BLOCKS OF

CONCRETE. SEE IT IN ACTION

AT WALLPAPER.COM ∏

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