Indian architecture studio Nowhere has renovated a house in Hyderabad called Mayalogili, coating it with a rough red-brown plaster made with brick and marble dust produced during the project.
Tasked with renewing the “old, opaque, heavy, worn down building” in a suburban neighbourhood, Nowhere looked to reestablish the connection between its interior and the surrounding gardens.
Alongside brick and marble dust, the studio also used plants and soil from the site to create tactile internal finishes that “weave in the materiality of the landscape”, it said.
“The proposal attempts to reestablish the tactile relationships the family used to share with nature and elements and create a living house,” explained Nowhere founder Seetharam Vallabhaneni.
The blocky form of Mayalogili sits at the centre of the site, fronted by a parking area and surrounded by a garden with a small pond.
Nowhere stripped the building back to its structure and created a small courtyard at its centre paved with recovered brick and stone, which the home opens onto via folding wooden doors.
A living area and office overlook this courtyard on the ground floor, while above it is wrapped by a large landing that connects the home’s bedrooms.
“We wanted to create a flexible system where all the spaces could be opened up completely almost as if there were no walls if they wanted, so in comes the large two- to three-metre-long folding doors with one layer each of glazed mesh doors,” Vallabhaneni told Dezeen.
“The climate is such that temperature-wise, we didn’t have to keep nature out, we just had to keep the unintended wildlife and bugs or mosquitoes out,” Vallabhaneni added.
On the roof of Mayalogili is a small pavilion-like space, clad entirely in thin, translucent marble panels. Walls of shutters can be opened to overlook the landscape and an adjacent bamboo structure containing a bathroom.
Facing the street, Mayalogili presents a more enclosed facade, with openings placed strategically within its plastered exterior to retain privacy.
Looking to create a textured feel for the home, Nowhere created this plaster exterior with dust generated during the renovation works and some sourced from local brick kilns.
For the interiors, a similar approach was taken, with the spaces finished in a variety of plasters made from materials drawn from the site.
“We were always looking for different ways to bring nature into the project and one of the ways it manifested was in the colour and where the colour actually has been extracted from,” said Vallabhaneni.
“For example, the primary bedroom – which overlooks the backyard where a mature jackfruit tree is situated – was rendered in a lime wash made from a paste of a Jackfruit tree’s leaves and the pulp of jackfruit,” added Vallabhaneni.
Other recently completed homes in India include Debris Block House in Bangalore by CollectiveProject, which uses construction waste within its structure, and House of Greens by 4site Architects that offers “a garden experience in every space”.
The photography is by Vivek Eadara.
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