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Fonte d'Amore
Fonte d'Amore
Delhi Division, DL, India
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Other Projects by MOFA Studio
Fonte d'Amore
Delhi Division, DL, India
Firm
Type
STATUS
Built
YEAR
2024
SIZE
0 sqft - 1000 sqft
BUDGET
$500K - 1M
Computation and Craft Shape a Surrealist Courtyard in New Delhi
The story of Fonte d'Amore begins with a wedding proposal at Rome's Trevi Fountain, a moment the couple shared from a trip that became the seed for this commission. Their travels through Barcelona had sparked an added fascination with Antoni Gaudí’s Catalan architecture. When they approached architect Manish Gulati and his firm, MOFA Studio, the brief was to transform an unused 600-square-foot courtyard in their New Delhi home into something that amalgamated those memories into a physical experience to be lived with, every day: the sound of water, a spatial quality that felt Renaissance, an environment where the past could live in the present.
From Familiar Memories to a New Space
Memory, the architects reasoned, is not a photograph. It shifts, layers, and recomposes itself through time. With this consideration, MOFA Studio’s response was not to replicate Trevi or imitate Gaudí, but to translate the couple's experience into spatial and tectonic terms.
A sculptural stone fountain, a dreamy reminiscence of the Trevi Fountain, serves as the focal point of the courtyard. The Renaissance sense of symmetry anchors the base, with tall arches framing the ground level. As the structure ascends through five storeys, these arches undergo a metamorphosis into Gaudí-inspired catenary forms, appearing as a fluid cloud emerging from the rigour of Renaissance formalism. Stone surfaces twist and arc in a sinuous dance, creating a sculptural envelope that visually unites each floor. By the time the gaze reaches the dome and its punctuating oculi, the rigid geometry of the base has dissolved entirely into ethereal, cloud-like abstraction. Here, strict order surrenders to the realm of pure possibility.
Systemic Fluidity: AI and Human Craft as Creative Collaborators
A prevailing assumption in architectural discourse positions AI and craft as opposites: the algorithmic versus the handmade, the logic versus the intuition. Fonte d'Amore breaks away from this binary. The entire design process is structured as a continuous exchange between computation and craft, each informing the other at every stage.
The process began with AI-generated mood boards that used the Trevi Fountain in a surrealistic Catalan setting as a reference. With more than 200 iterations of art and its context, exploring formal possibilities at a speed and scale that hand-sketching alone could not achieve. The outputs served as provocations: starting points that opened up unexpected directions.
The next challenge was its physical manifestation through actual structure. A lightweight steel parametric gridshell forms the skeleton of the fluid envelope, conceived as the ‘bone’ or ‘leaf-vein’ of the space. The gridshell uses straightened segments rather than curved members, simplifying fabrication and reducing material waste. Computational precision was utilized to serve economy alongside expression.
A Synthesis of Algorithm and Artisan
MOFA Studio’s design process established a fluid dialogue between digital computation and traditional craftsmanship, defined by two distinct yet parallel workflows.
Spatial Context and Structural Refinement: The architectural backdrop was forged through an intensive iterative process. Stone surfaces underwent more than 25 refinements via AI exploration and computational modelling to achieve the ideal aesthetic proportion, a balanced interplay of light and shade, and a functional harmony between privacy and visibility. These digital iterations informed 3D-milled formwork, providing the structural logic for the hand-crafted stone elements.
The Evolution of Art Inserts: In parallel, the sculptures and fountain—integrated as bespoke 'Art Inserts'—followed a rigorous 'phygital' pipeline. AI-generated compositions were first realised as 3D-printed miniatures before being scaled up into life-size clay prototypes. These physical models were 3D-scanned back into the digital environment for precision refinement, creating a continuous feedback loop between the digital model and the physical mock-up.
The Human Resolution: This workflow effectively reversed the typical digital-to-physical hierarchy. AI concepts served merely as formal 'clues' for Shersingh, a Delhi-based artisan from a distinguished lineage of visual artists. Rather than the technology dictating the solution, the AI prompted the craft; Shersingh interpreted each composition by hand, carving the final resolution into stone. This back-and-forth between algorithm and artisan produced a fluid system where computation proposed and craft resolved, achieving forms that neither could have created in isolation.
Using the aid of AI in analytical reasoning, material selection, and optimising structural systems of the existing house, the entire project was completed within 6 months. Without AI and computational technologies, the same process might have needed at least 24 months.
A Meditative, Surrealist Experience
As one enters the courtyard, the clamour of Delhi recedes and time feels suspended. The stone fountain awakens with the soothing cadence of cascading water, while jasmine vines ascend tiered green walls to scent the air. The eye is drawn upwards through the five-storey volume to a dome punctuated by four oculi, allowing light to flood the space by day, and the moon and stars by night. This formerly mundane environment is reimagined as a surrealist cocoon where time appears to fold in on itself. The same computational framework that sculpted the surrealist geometry also defines the passive climate strategy for the space. Given the searing intensity of Delhi’s summers, the courtyard is engineered to remain temperate without mechanical intervention. The four oculi serve as contemporary wind-catchers; their orientation was precisely optimised through environmental simulations to draw cooling breezes deep into the volume.
The stone fountain offers more than a mere allusion to the Trevi; its mist facilitates evaporative cooling, reducing the perceived temperature by some 6–8°C. Furthermore, tiered planters foster a bespoke microclimate whilst softening the tactile presence of the stone surfaces. Here, vernacular strategies- stack ventilation, evaporative cooling, and strategic landscaping- are not merely functional 'add-ons', but are woven into the very formal and experiential fabric of the design.
Through an innovative spatial translation of lived experiences, rather than the reproduction of historic precedents, MOFA Studio creates a space that remains intimate despite its complexity. The project reframes AI in architecture not simply as an agent of automation, but as a creative collaborator for amplifying human sensitivity, imagination, and craft.
The story of Fonte d'Amore begins with a wedding proposal at Rome's Trevi Fountain, a moment the couple shared from a trip that became the seed for this commission. Their travels through Barcelona had sparked an added fascination with Antoni Gaudí’s Catalan architecture. When they approached architect Manish Gulati and his firm, MOFA Studio, the brief was to transform an unused 600-square-foot courtyard in their New Delhi home into something that amalgamated those memories into a physical experience to be lived with, every day: the sound of water, a spatial quality that felt Renaissance, an environment where the past could live in the present.
From Familiar Memories to a New Space
Memory, the architects reasoned, is not a photograph. It shifts, layers, and recomposes itself through time. With this consideration, MOFA Studio’s response was not to replicate Trevi or imitate Gaudí, but to translate the couple's experience into spatial and tectonic terms.
A sculptural stone fountain, a dreamy reminiscence of the Trevi Fountain, serves as the focal point of the courtyard. The Renaissance sense of symmetry anchors the base, with tall arches framing the ground level. As the structure ascends through five storeys, these arches undergo a metamorphosis into Gaudí-inspired catenary forms, appearing as a fluid cloud emerging from the rigour of Renaissance formalism. Stone surfaces twist and arc in a sinuous dance, creating a sculptural envelope that visually unites each floor. By the time the gaze reaches the dome and its punctuating oculi, the rigid geometry of the base has dissolved entirely into ethereal, cloud-like abstraction. Here, strict order surrenders to the realm of pure possibility.
Systemic Fluidity: AI and Human Craft as Creative Collaborators
A prevailing assumption in architectural discourse positions AI and craft as opposites: the algorithmic versus the handmade, the logic versus the intuition. Fonte d'Amore breaks away from this binary. The entire design process is structured as a continuous exchange between computation and craft, each informing the other at every stage.
The process began with AI-generated mood boards that used the Trevi Fountain in a surrealistic Catalan setting as a reference. With more than 200 iterations of art and its context, exploring formal possibilities at a speed and scale that hand-sketching alone could not achieve. The outputs served as provocations: starting points that opened up unexpected directions.
The next challenge was its physical manifestation through actual structure. A lightweight steel parametric gridshell forms the skeleton of the fluid envelope, conceived as the ‘bone’ or ‘leaf-vein’ of the space. The gridshell uses straightened segments rather than curved members, simplifying fabrication and reducing material waste. Computational precision was utilized to serve economy alongside expression.
A Synthesis of Algorithm and Artisan
MOFA Studio’s design process established a fluid dialogue between digital computation and traditional craftsmanship, defined by two distinct yet parallel workflows.
Spatial Context and Structural Refinement: The architectural backdrop was forged through an intensive iterative process. Stone surfaces underwent more than 25 refinements via AI exploration and computational modelling to achieve the ideal aesthetic proportion, a balanced interplay of light and shade, and a functional harmony between privacy and visibility. These digital iterations informed 3D-milled formwork, providing the structural logic for the hand-crafted stone elements.
The Evolution of Art Inserts: In parallel, the sculptures and fountain—integrated as bespoke 'Art Inserts'—followed a rigorous 'phygital' pipeline. AI-generated compositions were first realised as 3D-printed miniatures before being scaled up into life-size clay prototypes. These physical models were 3D-scanned back into the digital environment for precision refinement, creating a continuous feedback loop between the digital model and the physical mock-up.
The Human Resolution: This workflow effectively reversed the typical digital-to-physical hierarchy. AI concepts served merely as formal 'clues' for Shersingh, a Delhi-based artisan from a distinguished lineage of visual artists. Rather than the technology dictating the solution, the AI prompted the craft; Shersingh interpreted each composition by hand, carving the final resolution into stone. This back-and-forth between algorithm and artisan produced a fluid system where computation proposed and craft resolved, achieving forms that neither could have created in isolation.
Using the aid of AI in analytical reasoning, material selection, and optimising structural systems of the existing house, the entire project was completed within 6 months. Without AI and computational technologies, the same process might have needed at least 24 months.
A Meditative, Surrealist Experience
As one enters the courtyard, the clamour of Delhi recedes and time feels suspended. The stone fountain awakens with the soothing cadence of cascading water, while jasmine vines ascend tiered green walls to scent the air. The eye is drawn upwards through the five-storey volume to a dome punctuated by four oculi, allowing light to flood the space by day, and the moon and stars by night. This formerly mundane environment is reimagined as a surrealist cocoon where time appears to fold in on itself. The same computational framework that sculpted the surrealist geometry also defines the passive climate strategy for the space. Given the searing intensity of Delhi’s summers, the courtyard is engineered to remain temperate without mechanical intervention. The four oculi serve as contemporary wind-catchers; their orientation was precisely optimised through environmental simulations to draw cooling breezes deep into the volume.
The stone fountain offers more than a mere allusion to the Trevi; its mist facilitates evaporative cooling, reducing the perceived temperature by some 6–8°C. Furthermore, tiered planters foster a bespoke microclimate whilst softening the tactile presence of the stone surfaces. Here, vernacular strategies- stack ventilation, evaporative cooling, and strategic landscaping- are not merely functional 'add-ons', but are woven into the very formal and experiential fabric of the design.
Through an innovative spatial translation of lived experiences, rather than the reproduction of historic precedents, MOFA Studio creates a space that remains intimate despite its complexity. The project reframes AI in architecture not simply as an agent of automation, but as a creative collaborator for amplifying human sensitivity, imagination, and craft.
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