The second definitive move is the layering of light through a series of material gestures, each one tuned to the direction that light takes and the need for changing degrees of privacy. This is articulated with screening devices made of fine netting framed in traditionally crafted wood, fluted glass which diffuses the light and greenery and hints at the absent city, and sliding and folding wooden windows, all of which allow for degrees of seclusion.
The walls are finished in a celadon-coloured traditional plaster, smooth like human skin, and crackled like the ancient Chinese glaze, giving the transitory appearance of a fragmented ceramic container, rectilinear and encased with a lid of weathered copper. The continuous copper roof plane forms a secondary datum for the house, becoming a surface of potential occupation and cover.
🆔 @netarch 🌿
The walls are finished in a celadon-coloured traditional plaster, smooth like human skin, and crackled like the ancient Chinese glaze, giving the transitory appearance of a fragmented ceramic container, rectilinear and encased with a lid of weathered copper. The continuous copper roof plane forms a secondary datum for the house, becoming a surface of potential occupation and cover.
🆔 @netarch 🌿
The last is the inclusion of the element of water, whether in the form of the monsoon rain which is relentless in its action on material and mood, or in the form of the well, the stream and the pool beyond the house. The seasonal ‘anxiety’ of the ground is addressed in the manner in which the paving is worked out within the courtyard in a continuous linear fashion and in a loose ring around the house, with undulations registering the flow of rainwater as it reaches for the nearest point of exit.
The entrance portal of the building is a non-place. Sitting beneath the first upper copper-wrapped container, it becomes a space of pause. In this house, with its hortus conclusus acting both as container and sieve, the exploration of the rites of retreat, passage and exclusion are tested again. The final gesture was housing the massive rock which came as a gift from the owner’s mother, leaving it for time to take over, as time inevitably will.
🆔 @netarch 🌿
The entrance portal of the building is a non-place. Sitting beneath the first upper copper-wrapped container, it becomes a space of pause. In this house, with its hortus conclusus acting both as container and sieve, the exploration of the rites of retreat, passage and exclusion are tested again. The final gesture was housing the massive rock which came as a gift from the owner’s mother, leaving it for time to take over, as time inevitably will.
🆔 @netarch 🌿