This House Uses Cuts Instead of Windows

This house looks like a closed block, almost no windows, but everything happens in the cuts. This is the Gowri Bidhanur residence in India, on an L-shaped site, bordered by streets on two sides. In other words, the house needs to protect itself, but at the same time, it needs to open up, and that defines the entire layout. The house starts as a single volume, a solid block, and then, this block is carved, parts are removed, cuts are made, and it is within these voids that the architecture happens. It feels massive, heavy, but full of incisions, deep cuts that allow light to enter, without fully exposing the interior. In other words, the house does not open with traditional windows, it opens with cuts. As you enter, the main space opens up, a large central void, with double height, and that is where everything is organized. Living room, social space, circulation. The organization follows the shape of the site. The spaces are distributed along the two arms of the L. On the ground floor are the social areas, and a guest bedroom. On the upper levels, the more private spaces, and at the top, a social area that opens to a terrace with a garden. One side of the living space opens to a narrow strip of garden, a linear space that runs along the wall and brings ventilation and light inside, even on a more enclosed urban site. Another important point is how the house works with light. Light does not enter directly, it enters through the cuts. It slides across the surfaces, and creates contrast, depth, and different atmospheres throughout the day. The materials reinforce this idea of a carved mass, concrete, light finishes, continuous surfaces. Everything helps maintain the reading of a single volume that has been cut into, and not assembled in parts. Gowri Bidanor residence is not made of separate volumes, it's a single volume that has been subtracted, carved, and transformed into space. A house where what matters most is not what was built, but what was removed. And it shows that sometimes, architecture is not about adding more, but about removing just enough.