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The Dichotomous House Vasant Kunj, New Delh

By: Ar. Shikha Doogar and Shridhar Rao, R+D Studio

The client, a family of 4, came to R+D Studio with a brief to design a 24,000 Sq ft house with servant’s quarters, a guard house and a store. The house was a home with views and vistas. It was important for them to have their house capture the landscape both inside and out. The daughter-in-law, an architect by profession, and son, an architecture enthusiast, both wanted the house to speak of the times and make a design statement both in experience and look.

The parents were modernists and wanted the house to be stately that would match their industrialist status and yet not compromise on the aspirations of their children. Unlike Delhi farmhouses, they wanted minimal bedrooms and utilitarian spaces with the ability to create entertainment spaces of different scales.

CONCEPT NOTE

The residence is a coalesce of two contrasting elements in form, materiality and space. Designed for a family of two couples- elderly and young, it is a binary of their spirits. The form is a composition of straight clean lines interrupted by quirky curves which evoke a sense of eccentricity in a stable geometry. The design intends to blur the boundaries between exterior and interior spaces bringing in the lush green gardens. The Dichotomous House Vasant Kunj, New Delhi Façade views.

The stairway The spatial hierarchy created finds small spaces complementing the larger double-height ones. The design has an open plan, a system of rotated blocks and funicular arches. The ground floor caters to the social spaces while the upper floor to the private. A basement with a sunken garden creates room for recreational spaces. The juxtaposition flows in materials as Corten steel having a rustic appearance sits with a white stucco finish.

DESIGN PROCESS

The starting point for the design was the idea of yin-yang where we knew that the old and new were to be balanced. The design was conceived in frames that captured the best views from anywhere in the house with the idea of bringing outside in. The public and semi-public spaces were restricted to the ground floor and basement while the private spaces were stacked on the first floor.
The fins and their location were explored keeping in mind Vaastu, ecology and the different programmatic elements. The design narrative ties the landscape with the different elements of the programme and architecture making it an integrated design process.