Architecture firm SDeG have recently completed the S-House in Chennai, India.
Project description
Our proposal is located in a dense, urban setting, on an 110sqm plot.
It’s bulbous, undulating appearance sets it distinctly apart in this neighborhood. This was done consciously – to challenge the site’s rigid edges, and formally, to cushion everything visibly grid-like around it.
The seemingly gelatinous concrete envelope is twin-walled, thickened to mitigate heat gains, engineered to form air gaps, and houses customized glazing/building management systems. It was constructed using light-weight cast-in-situ ferroconcrete on wood, fibre glass and steel sheet-moulds. Most parts of the construction involved dexterous masons, and very few mechanized processes, to curb costs.
Programmatically, the house looks inwards – an internal court penetrates the volume and creates several links and relationships within. A series of sculpted cantilevered treads wind upwards along the court’s edges to connect the living and private spaces, leading up to a rooftop pool and media room. The facades respond to the distribution of these functions, evident in the formation of ocular projections.
We imagined a building that merges different qualities – functional and buoyant within; expressive and invigorating in its outward presence.
Architects: SDeG
Design team: Sujit Nair, Balaji T
Photography by Sujith Sugathan
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