This Courtyard in Pune has Connection with the Landscape from Every Room (House Tour).

For us, the idea of a house was important. I believe a house is not just a place, it's a feeling and it's about the memories. So it was very crucial for us, how can we design spaces which create memories? How can we celebrate life in general? So the idea was, how can we connect this house with the forest? And that's how we created these gardens on either side and placed the house in between and that's how the name coined, House Between the Gardens. This is a modern luxurious house, designed for a traditional client, integrated with the green spaces. The biggest challenge was, how we can blur the boundaries between the built mass and unbuilt mass, obviously maintaining the luxury which my clients demanded. Hello, myself architect Pankaj Bhagwatkar, now today we are at House Between the Gardens in Pune. To know more about the project and download the e-book, please visit buildafy.com. The link is in the description below. The important factor in this particular site was this forest which is lying on the east side. So this design has four development stages. First is, there is a site and this site had a slope from east to west, that is from the reserve forest towards the road. So this was the slope, there was a forest here. Then this is the house on the contour and then again there is a garden here. The second part which comes, according to the slope, we have made five different planes actually. We will put the house in between and we can make the gardens here. Then the third part comes in, how can we place the grid according to the client's function, how can we connect the east and west garden together. So in between we have placed these two blocks for the house. Again this particular space we kept it open. The grid which we have designed, this particular house was 1.5 meters. The entire house is placed on 1.5 meter by 1.5 meter grid. The house welcomes you with the beautiful bougainvillea wall. The chaffa alongside will guide you to the entrance of the house and there is a pavilion here. This is the water body, over that we have planted a chaffa and even this nandi and there is a deep mall here. So imagine a chaffa flower falls onto the water, it creates a ripple along with the movement of the fish. This is our entry foyer. On this side we have placed formal living room. So when you enter into the living spaces, the bigger openings which will give the view of the red and the white chaffas in the landscape. So from here this is opening out and towards the pool which is again opening towards the forest. This particular portion is all is a family living room and a dining. So over the weekend you know 15-20 people come together. They wanted to have the spaces to accommodate all these kind of activities. In this family area, we have a courtyard which is actually there is a skylight, a circular skylight on top which filters the light throughout the day and as the sun moves, all the light quality inside it again changes the mood throughout the day. So for the fall ceiling, we have gypsum sheets from Saint-Gobain gyprock. This is a pit which we have planted again trees which bring the greenery from the outside on this part. We are in the courtyard of the house which is composed with the different transitional spaces and there is a staircase which leads from ground floor to the first floor. So there are corridors on the first floor. We have made two kitchens. One is modern kitchen and there is a traditional kitchen over here. So in kitchen, here we have given a slit window and we have planted nice bamboo over here. So you get again connection with the gardens over there. This particular place for the puja room, we kept it as per the Vastu. We have placed the skylight just above the shrine. So we have brought the natural light into the puja room to create a peacefulness and tranquility. On this side, we have the guest bedroom and there is a private deck here. So this bedroom particularly opens into the deck and eventually into the garden. Coming on this side, this is the southwest side and here we have kept the master bedroom. So master bedroom again has a deck. This particular room has a private courtyard also here. We have created five levels. This is one level, this is another level, then this is third level is a house level, this is fourth level and this is fifth level. Then if you see what we have done is, at the end we have made a very soft curve so that you know how the landscape merge into the forest. So the idea was to create the different emotions out of the landscape. We have planted all the big trees in the periphery so that eventually it will grow further and it will you know create privacy from the other neighborhood plants. And smaller plants like Taffa, Parijat, you know these are the very native Indian plants which we have planted. Coming on to the first floor, this is staircase which leads you to the passage. This passage actually goes like this and this connects over here towards this bedroom. On this corner, we have placed study area which is attached to the Ponduskai courtyard. There is a deck here as well. So you can open on both the side, either you open into this garden or you know again open into the east side of garden so that you can see the forest and the sky on this side. I believe every house should have a space for nothingness. There are a lot of spaces here where they can go alone and sit. At the same time, there are spaces where they can have a bigger gathering, festivals and you know in general celebration.