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Amber Hotel
Amber Hotel
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Amber Hotel
Cuboid
House
Location New
Friends Colony, New Delhi
Completed 2012
Area 15000
sqft
The project attempts to demonstrate the possibility of
affirming some ‘principles’; some elementary yet precise rules. A series of
spatial sequences are structured around minimal architectural events
distributed throughout the house. These events are meant to be merely the
background for the life of the future occupants and therefore recede into an
almost imperceptible variation of light and shadow.
Developer-driven apartment blocks have completely
overtaken the immediate context and most of urban Delhi. These apartment blocks
typically occupy the complete permissible envelope and then embellish the
peripheral walls with whatever is currently most fashionable. The resulting
urban condition is one dominated by forced facades that are 50ft/15m tall,
punctuated only with unusable three feet balconies and large expanses of
inoperable glass with little or no protection from the climate.
In contrast, the Cuboid House strategically optimises
all of the area permissible by local code, but redistributes it amongst the
various floor levels. The lower service floors are extended to the perimeter to
allow for a larger ground floor and to maximise the parking at the road level.
However instead of stacking upper plans above each other,
the building steps away dramatically as it rises, giving way to a series of
decks that open up to views on the north-east.
This strategy helps bring light deep into what is
essentially, a narrow thin building. To further add to the luminosity of the
interior spaces, two light wells are placed in the main living space. Equipped
with operable windows, they not only bring light, but also draw out air from
the floors and vent from the terrace. The deep recesses for the windows and
large overhangs temper the fierce climate of Delhi and recall sustainable
building traditions, while allowing for views from within. Two local stones,
one grey (cudappah), the other sandy brown (jaisalmer teak), are used to emphasize
the cubic volumes that give this house its name and form its most distinctive
visible element.
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