This is an experimental project of reinterpreting courtyard housing typology. We aimed to break the conventional sloping roof courtyard housing typology with some unique architectural characters without changing the overall planning. The courtyard is conceived as a spatial divider, like a family camp, to consolidate and share the conviviality and burdens of daily living without feeling overcrowded at night. The courtyard is excavated in plan to optimize views and passive solar gain, allowing light and air inside, while sinking the house into the landscape to maximize thermal insulation and intimacy from the urban context. The rooms are conceived as a continuous sequence of event spaces. Each room is equipped for the varying performances of daily living, framed by the outside, suggesting an architecture of simplicity and harmony between the built and the vegetal.

Project Facts –

Site area_ 45 cent

Built area _ 3300 sqft

Client_ Mr. Sudheesh

Location_ Palakkad, Kerala

Design team_Akhil Gopi, Akhil Das

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Rupali Gupte

Rupali Gupte is an architect and urbanist based in Mumbai, Professor at the School of Environment and Architecture (SEA) and a partner at BARDStudio. Her work often crosses disciplinary boundaries and takes different forms – writings, drawings, mixed-media works, story telling, teaching, curation, walks and spatial interventions.

Her works include extensive research on contemporary Indian urbanism with a focus on architecture and built environment; tactical practices; housing; and urban form. In 2013, she co-founded the School of Environment and Architecture (sea.edu.in). SEA is envisaged as an experimental academic space for research and education in architecture and urbanism. She has a wide range of publications, has delivered lectures and been on juries across the world. Her works in collaboration with her partner Prasad Shetty, have been shown in several exhibitions including the 56th Venice Biennale, X Sao Paolo Architecture Biennale, Seoul Biennale of Art and Architecture, at Manifesta 7 in Bolzano, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona and at galleries such as Project 88, Devi Art Foundation and the Mumbai Art Room. She has recently curated an exhibition involving artists and architects titled ‘When is Space? Conversations in Contemporary Architecture’ at the Jawahar Kala Kendra.

Rupali Gupte