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Net House
Net House
Ahmedabad, India
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Other Projects by Matharoo Associates
Net House
Ahmedabad, India
The relentlessly
varying weather of the city of Ahmedabad exemplifies the typical tropical
climate of extremes: short winters, wet humid monsoons and long dry scorching
summers. Though
less prevalent today, in our childhood we slept outdoors when the cool night breezes came as a reliever. We
would tuck ourselves under a machardani,
a simple net held up by four
intersecting bamboo poles, locked between the legs of our charpouy cot.
This would become our private domain, a safe haven protecting from insects,
harsh light and parents’ eyes. When the design
brief for a weekend house in the fringes of the city asked for a place that is
open to the wilderness of nature yet offers all creature comforts, it brought back
memories of the net and the shelter
it offered. The house was
visualized as a clearing amidst the forest. A 12mx12m column less space is
sheltered by a single monolithic 90 ton concrete slab suspended by an elaborate
steel framework which becomes thin mullions to a skin of net shutters. This
steel trellis makes the transparent volume below evident by stark contrast,
reverberating the image of the virtual jungle of hoardings, telecom towers,
satellite dishes and temporary structures that now make up the Indian city
skyline. The undercroft
is enveloped in gossamer layers of sliding mosquito nets, roll up blinds and
folding glass panels that center around an all-encompassing cabinet, the pulsating
heart of the house. All these
layers provide desired degrees of privacy, shelter and exposure to nature,
enabling the space to be modulated at will to suit the weather and psyche, from
completely accessible and open to the outside, to fully closed and dark inside. The two meter
high cabinet works as a divider between the living space and the bathing areas.
It unfurls to become a dining table with chairs inside and opens out into a
kitchen replete with microwave, refrigerator, cooking appliances and cutlery, unfolding
further to reveal an air conditioning unit, music system, television and speakers,
storage for clothes and accessories. Custom designed and locally made, the top
of the cabinet also becomes a lamp illuminating the concrete slab at night. The
light thus reflected attracts no insects. The shielded
bathing area contains two private washrooms, whose plumbing, drainage and
storage are also accommodated inside the very cabinet. The washrooms then open
out into a secluded private area, netted again and including a Jacuzzi, steam
bath, sun deck and a vast lilly pond thus making the 2mx7m washroom seem
infinite. The bathing pool demands its own significance and occupies as
dominant a volume as the living areas: The duality of the veiled transitional
space and the water body set against the encircling stone wall makes it
intimate. As the concrete
slab hangs detached from the ground, a 150mm steel pipe becomes the only
element mediating between the ground and the roof. Water collected from the
roof flows down this pipe and spring back up at its vertical to form a fountain before accumulating
in a 1.4 million liter underground tank, harvesting rain water during monsoons.
Glass treads and a hand rail intertwine with this fountain to make a light stair,
creating the notional experience of walking up a column of water. The upper
floor accommodates a netted space for yoga, sunbathing, a walkway on the
periphery and a gazebo to look out onto the landscape. The site is a
series of interweaving mounds and valleys set against a back drop of trees to
make an environment that is an escape from city life. Away from the net house, an
outdoor shower has been created in rough concrete as if it had been violently
gorged out of the soft green mound.
The Net House,
the sum total of all the essential components of living yet bare and compact,
attempts to act as a catalyst, not getting consumed but enhancing the
man-nature relationship, both within and without, just like the net panes counterbalanced by cylindrical weights
suspended from pulleys above. Text: Ahaladini Sridhran, Shilpa Sushil & Rob TaylorLandscape Strategy:
The
site is a composition of winding pathways with undulating mounds of earth, all
enclosed within a {high landscaped boundary wall}. As one walks by these
mounds, the steel fabricated
jungle with its suspensions slowly
unleash. Another prominent vista, cutting through these mounds is the {fourth
element} which is a major landscape feature- a staggered chunk of huge concrete
blocks holding back earth to contain a rain water shower.Site-landscape:The flat site of jagged shape
with virtually no vegetation except for a lone full grown mango tree .And the
brief was a place to get away from city life in to wilderness. So the site plan
idea was to make self a referential green space containing a valley .An empty
tranquil space .A series of intertwining mounds with back drop of tree layers
created the valley, making its own environment. Through the narrow (passes) or
crevices the smaller vegetation marches in the green bowl, creating variation
in the vegetation in side. So story of the place became that of pavilion
peeping in to the valley by attaching itself to corner of the site, hence
getting the maximum view length available in site. The mango tree and the net
pavilion’ seems to be having dialogue sitting on either side of the valley reminding
a primordial idea of shelter .The secondary functions like Garage, Pump room,
service yard all tucked under the mounds virtually leaving the Green and net
House as the only dominant visible elements. Vegetation is essentially trying
to replicate the wilderness with punctuations of some specimen trees. A gorge like space is
violently carved through the soft green mound, my making crude concrete walls,
which are a complete opposite of extremely refined bare minimum steel
structure. This becomes a water play space experience in a cave like space. The
Residue space between net house and property edge wall is a water body full of
lotus, and water plants. There is sharp dialogue between the Horizontal planes
of water body verses the stark black stone clad boundary wall. The duality of
veiled transition valley side the versus the directness water body space is
striking making water body space more an intimate one. The bare minimum pavilion in
its positioning is also reflected with Bare in its construct by refined
industrial process, of intelligently removing the unnecessary l material by web
structure of truss. The juxtaposition is also in its positioning of extremely
industrial product against an artificial forest like environment. Even though
the whole environment is man Ordered, the relation between the open space and
Pavilion remains primordial, leaving nature to itself and being by it self.Net
House by its Minimal interventions in to the green space formally, and with
minimal layering spatially , and structurally minimizes itself at many levels ,
making powerful bare statement about dwelling and nature. Water harvest: The arterial water needs an
artificial water source but sourced from the nature that is rain. A large water
harvesting pond formed underground traps the site water which caters water
requirement for dry part of the year. So Built up land forms, Dug out water
containers, Large
plantations, an excess of landscape process is juxtaposed against a reduced
built structure.
varying weather of the city of Ahmedabad exemplifies the typical tropical
climate of extremes: short winters, wet humid monsoons and long dry scorching
summers. Though
less prevalent today, in our childhood we slept outdoors when the cool night breezes came as a reliever. We
would tuck ourselves under a machardani,
a simple net held up by four
intersecting bamboo poles, locked between the legs of our charpouy cot.
This would become our private domain, a safe haven protecting from insects,
harsh light and parents’ eyes. When the design
brief for a weekend house in the fringes of the city asked for a place that is
open to the wilderness of nature yet offers all creature comforts, it brought back
memories of the net and the shelter
it offered. The house was
visualized as a clearing amidst the forest. A 12mx12m column less space is
sheltered by a single monolithic 90 ton concrete slab suspended by an elaborate
steel framework which becomes thin mullions to a skin of net shutters. This
steel trellis makes the transparent volume below evident by stark contrast,
reverberating the image of the virtual jungle of hoardings, telecom towers,
satellite dishes and temporary structures that now make up the Indian city
skyline. The undercroft
is enveloped in gossamer layers of sliding mosquito nets, roll up blinds and
folding glass panels that center around an all-encompassing cabinet, the pulsating
heart of the house. All these
layers provide desired degrees of privacy, shelter and exposure to nature,
enabling the space to be modulated at will to suit the weather and psyche, from
completely accessible and open to the outside, to fully closed and dark inside. The two meter
high cabinet works as a divider between the living space and the bathing areas.
It unfurls to become a dining table with chairs inside and opens out into a
kitchen replete with microwave, refrigerator, cooking appliances and cutlery, unfolding
further to reveal an air conditioning unit, music system, television and speakers,
storage for clothes and accessories. Custom designed and locally made, the top
of the cabinet also becomes a lamp illuminating the concrete slab at night. The
light thus reflected attracts no insects. The shielded
bathing area contains two private washrooms, whose plumbing, drainage and
storage are also accommodated inside the very cabinet. The washrooms then open
out into a secluded private area, netted again and including a Jacuzzi, steam
bath, sun deck and a vast lilly pond thus making the 2mx7m washroom seem
infinite. The bathing pool demands its own significance and occupies as
dominant a volume as the living areas: The duality of the veiled transitional
space and the water body set against the encircling stone wall makes it
intimate. As the concrete
slab hangs detached from the ground, a 150mm steel pipe becomes the only
element mediating between the ground and the roof. Water collected from the
roof flows down this pipe and spring back up at its vertical to form a fountain before accumulating
in a 1.4 million liter underground tank, harvesting rain water during monsoons.
Glass treads and a hand rail intertwine with this fountain to make a light stair,
creating the notional experience of walking up a column of water. The upper
floor accommodates a netted space for yoga, sunbathing, a walkway on the
periphery and a gazebo to look out onto the landscape. The site is a
series of interweaving mounds and valleys set against a back drop of trees to
make an environment that is an escape from city life. Away from the net house, an
outdoor shower has been created in rough concrete as if it had been violently
gorged out of the soft green mound.
The Net House,
the sum total of all the essential components of living yet bare and compact,
attempts to act as a catalyst, not getting consumed but enhancing the
man-nature relationship, both within and without, just like the net panes counterbalanced by cylindrical weights
suspended from pulleys above. Text: Ahaladini Sridhran, Shilpa Sushil & Rob TaylorLandscape Strategy:
The
site is a composition of winding pathways with undulating mounds of earth, all
enclosed within a {high landscaped boundary wall}. As one walks by these
mounds, the steel fabricated
jungle with its suspensions slowly
unleash. Another prominent vista, cutting through these mounds is the {fourth
element} which is a major landscape feature- a staggered chunk of huge concrete
blocks holding back earth to contain a rain water shower.Site-landscape:The flat site of jagged shape
with virtually no vegetation except for a lone full grown mango tree .And the
brief was a place to get away from city life in to wilderness. So the site plan
idea was to make self a referential green space containing a valley .An empty
tranquil space .A series of intertwining mounds with back drop of tree layers
created the valley, making its own environment. Through the narrow (passes) or
crevices the smaller vegetation marches in the green bowl, creating variation
in the vegetation in side. So story of the place became that of pavilion
peeping in to the valley by attaching itself to corner of the site, hence
getting the maximum view length available in site. The mango tree and the net
pavilion’ seems to be having dialogue sitting on either side of the valley reminding
a primordial idea of shelter .The secondary functions like Garage, Pump room,
service yard all tucked under the mounds virtually leaving the Green and net
House as the only dominant visible elements. Vegetation is essentially trying
to replicate the wilderness with punctuations of some specimen trees. A gorge like space is
violently carved through the soft green mound, my making crude concrete walls,
which are a complete opposite of extremely refined bare minimum steel
structure. This becomes a water play space experience in a cave like space. The
Residue space between net house and property edge wall is a water body full of
lotus, and water plants. There is sharp dialogue between the Horizontal planes
of water body verses the stark black stone clad boundary wall. The duality of
veiled transition valley side the versus the directness water body space is
striking making water body space more an intimate one. The bare minimum pavilion in
its positioning is also reflected with Bare in its construct by refined
industrial process, of intelligently removing the unnecessary l material by web
structure of truss. The juxtaposition is also in its positioning of extremely
industrial product against an artificial forest like environment. Even though
the whole environment is man Ordered, the relation between the open space and
Pavilion remains primordial, leaving nature to itself and being by it self.Net
House by its Minimal interventions in to the green space formally, and with
minimal layering spatially , and structurally minimizes itself at many levels ,
making powerful bare statement about dwelling and nature. Water harvest: The arterial water needs an
artificial water source but sourced from the nature that is rain. A large water
harvesting pond formed underground traps the site water which caters water
requirement for dry part of the year. So Built up land forms, Dug out water
containers, Large
plantations, an excess of landscape process is juxtaposed against a reduced
built structure.
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