LB 21 SPASM parikrama house ONLINE sample PREVIEW

SPASM

PARIKRAMA HOUSE

SPASM

PREETI SINGH

We have a flamenco kind of approach and Ping-Pong kind of pace. Shared experiences over the years make every project we take on enjoyable. Our approach is very chaotic upfront. Our team is intrinsically involved from the get-go; several ideas are put on the table and worked through laterally. Essentially, our expression is based on the concerns we develop while understanding what the task is at hand. These concerns are then translated into a physical tangible buildable construct using our own personal intuitive logic – rational decisions based on relevance, appropriateness, technology, budgets, craftsmanship, locale, the list is too long. SPASM is not interested in being avantgarde. Like Marcel Proust said, “To see new landscapes you don’t need to always journey, but have new eyes.” We try to be very human in our approach and not too fussy in our details.

We do try to bring a poetic touch to our expression but never at the cost of appropriateness. An eastern kind of “inclusivity” is sought; every aspect of building, occupation and future ageing of projects is mulled over – many, many, many times over. Every commission is an opportunity to discover ourselves, through what we propose and build.

Preeti Singh is a senior editor and a content advisor who has been in leadership positions for media houses for over 20 years.

She has been the Brand Director for INDIA DESIGN ID, India’s premier luxury design week, where she also curated the celebrated thought-platform – ID Symposium.

Singh was also the Country Editor for Houzz, an American design platform. Prior to that, she was the founding editor of Times of India’s two publications - Home & Design TRENDS (a collaboration with New Zealand’s TRENDS) and BBC Knowledge (a collaboration with the BBC group) magazines. She advises companies on brand growth as well as on content marketing and communication strategies.

Founded in 1995, SPASM is a small controlled practice.

We’re interested in an intimate relationship with our studio, our team, our collaborators, our models, drawings, visualizations, products, buildings and our clients. We do this because we love it. We sense displeasure; we respect questioning and constructive criticism on all the projects. We don’t know how to run our studio any other way.

The extremely personal way our studio runs gives us immense happiness. Our ultimate objective is simply happiness – a sense of doing something.

PIERO ZUCCHI Piero Zucchi (Italy, 1965) graduated in Architecture at IUAV in Venice in 1992. After a collaboration with Gino Valle from 1993 to 1998 and teaching at the architecture universities of Venice, Trieste and Ljubljana (Slovenia), in 1999 he founded GEZA Architettura in Udine (Italy) with Stefano Gri, an architecture firm operating on an international scale, with a reputation for the enduring quality of its projects, spanning both in the public and private sectors, such as cultural institutions, housing, urban planning initiatives, workplaces and with a special focus on the relationship between industrial architecture and landscape.

LB 21 SPASM parikrama house, is the twenty first title from LONG BOOKS COLLECTION.

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A PILLOW OF WINDS “Eternity is in love with the productions of time.”

William Blake

A visit to Spasm Design’s architectures is an experience of tranquility and appropriateness, of respect for the environment and clear, defined volumes, and is beautifully summed up in a phrase that recurs in the interviews in which Sangeeta Merchant and Sanjeev Panjabi, founders of the firm, describe their works: “(...) a single breath in which everything is perfect.”

But their vast repertoire of works lends itself to a more nuanced reading, one that highlights the absence of a Style and the presence of a Method.

One of the studio’s best-known works, the House cast in Liquid Stone, presents itself as a sculpture that is born from the place itself, accepts its intense natural rules and it is chiseled by the elements. A basalt soul that is shaped by air and rain, like Eduardo Chillida’s Wind Combs.

This is surely one of the rules behind the Spasm Method, “form follows climate,” quoting Charles Correa. But their architecture is never mimetic: there is no timidity, lines are defined and confident, volumes are clear, and types are recognizable. The comparison is on par.

The result is the constant search for architectural landmarks combined with messages of sustainability and correspondence with the environment.

This is a fundamental point: in Spasm’s works it seems that the traditional dichotomy between Man and Nature, the struggle between Technology and Natural Elements, has found a different path. Architecture and Nature are no longer antagonists; they collaborate together until they compose a new result with greater value and depth.

Nature is sitting at the design table, it informs the project from the beginning, it has the same value as Tradition, Technology and the other compositional tools of Architecture.

No longer struggle but collaboration, not violence but calm...an extremely contemporary method: it is no coincidence that today the world’s best tropical architectures set an example, with the very high quality of the results, achieved by adding spiritual qualities to the ability to listen to and translate both human and environmental needs.

The essential and profound interrelationship between Man and Nature is the basis of Spasm’s work.

Today, at a crucial time in the history of the Planet, such a collaborative idea is as relevant as ever.

Moreover, Spasm’s projects exhibit a strong will to adapt, linked to particular environmental conditions - the tropical Indian climate, the Namibian desert, the heat of Dubai.

In this way, the projects produce meaningful, deeply identity-laden places that are developed through primal, foundational actions: digging, building with the materials of the place, “feeling” the desert, orienting with the winds, using the civic centrality of water as a public meeting place, protecting, shading, letting air and life flow...with lightness, tranquility and spirituality.

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PARIKRAMA HOUSE

NANDGAON, INDIA 2020

Tucked between a lush hillside on one side and swaying palms on the other lies a home where the rhythm of the tropics dances with the linearity of design. This is a dwelling of glass and granite, deeply rooted in its surroundings yet incredibly modern, both in form and function.

This creature of stone and glass has a presence like a Brutalist structure that has been softened with the refinement of contemporary minimalism; it’s a straight-lined monolith but it treads ever so lightly and surreptitiously on the ground.

Perhaps because a majority of its insides is air. The 150 x 30 ft home is a series of rooms stacked in front of each other in a line, with large, imposing floor-to-ceiling glass windows acting as sliding walls on opposite sides. Surrounded by wide verandas and shielded with a light as paper Zinc roof, it is a house that not only responds to its environment but also engages in a meaningful dialogue with it, embodying the very essence of tropical living.

In addition to the site that only allowed for a linear plot (to keep all the palm trees intact), the glass walls were a key protagonist in the home’s design drama. 20mm thick, self- cleaning, and going up to a height of over 4.2 meters in some areas, the linearity of the home was in response to the motion of these windows.

Architecturally, the house adopts a unique approach, Sangeeta and Sanjeev liken this build to a “double-headed snake” with the two ends of the structure rising taller than the middle rooms. The elevation isn’t a mere stylistic choice but serves another purpose too, like everything else in this home. The far ends are the living rooms designed as viewing, vantage points looking out to the world - with its three retractable glass walls and elevation - while the middle rooms are the more nestled, private zones.

Everything in the design is deliberate, conscious, and lucid. To go from one place to another, you must traverse an open 12-foot veranda. Thus the house is aptly named Parikrama, meaning a pilgrimage or circumambulation in Sanskrit. This concept of Parikrama extends beyond mere physical movement; it transcends into a sensorial experience, where each room opens up into a generous veranda, inviting you to immerse yourself in the tropical ambiance.

The verandas are this home’s lifelines; they with their deep overhangs and seamless transitions,

become an integral part of everyday life, blurring the boundaries between indoor and outdoor living.

Perhaps the boldest move for SPASM has been their commitment to using a singular material in this project -- granite. Here granite is omnipresent, on the floor, the walls, and in the passages. It’s a material used deliberately with abandon to create an almost monastery-like space. Through using the ancient tilt-up stone technique, pre-cut grey granite slabs were raised up with a winch, creating walls that are both sturdy and austere. The choice of this stone isn’t arbitrary but deeply rooted in the regional context of construction. In a high precipitation zone, the architecture needed a material that could withstand the challenges posed by the region’s climate.

This includes a roof that shields the home from the sun and the rain, but it’s this standing seam Zinc roof that gives the structure its most contemporary expression. It’s finesse is that of a blade, like the wing of an aircraft, but the truss has just enough girth to hide all functional elements inside. The deliberate lightness of the structure oversets the heavy granite walls at the bottom, its uninterrupted and generous cantilever extends in all directions over the verandas, embracing and enveloping all life below in its shadow.

In addition to its architectural prowess, the Parikrama house also embraces sustainability with quiet elegance. Salvaged wood sourced from old buildings, finds new life in custom- designed furniture and fittings, while the stone, sourced locally, undergoes minimal processing, retaining its natural beauty and durability. With a focus on simplicity and efficiency, the house seamlessly integrates with its ecosystem, embracing the principles of eco-conscious living.

Living in this home is an experience, especially during the night. The dark granite absorbs light, making the walls of the house virtually disappear, leaving only the vibrant moonlight dancing off of the surrounding vegetation. The house is a testament to thoughtful and innovative architectural design and seamlessly integrates the traditional and the modern, the heavy and the light, creating a dwelling that is both functional and poetic.

PREETI SINGH

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STRUCTURE DETAIL

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01 Wooden framing 50 x 150 mm fixed to bottom of truss 02 Window channel fitted to an L angle supported on a box section or similar detail 03 False ceiling in12mm thick plywood finished in 4 mm thic polished veneer as per selection

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04 Wooden block 25 x 65 mm to be installed after the granite slab is positioned 05 165 mm Ø M.S structural column as per structural specification 06 40 mm thick Leather finish granite partition

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07 Sliding window system 265 mm wide of PanoramAH! 08 100 mm thick flooring screed layer with finished floor in grey granite (leather finish) laid as per drawings 09 150 mm thick P.C.C layer as per structural details 10 R.C.C beam as per structural details 11 Water drain channel as per window consultant detail

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FEATURED WORK

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PARIKRAMA HOUSE NANDGAON, INDIA 2020 Client private Area 8050 sqft Images © Javier Callejas © Umang Shah Design Team Sangeeta Merchant Sanjeev Panjabi Divyesh Kargathra Pratishi Shah Landscape Consultant Professional Landscape Designs Structural Consultant GMR Consultants MEP Consultant: Wisetech AC Contractor Ice Factor Civil Contractor West Coast Realtor Window Consultants Durall Systems Pvt Ltd Construction Materials Steel grey granite, Zinc roof Lighting Delta Sanitary ware Kohler Windows PanoramAH! Carpentry Krishna Interiors Paint B.M.Decor Roof VM Zinc

AMAG LONG BOOKS COLLECTION brings together a unique selection of projects that establish new paradigms in architecture.

With a contemporary and timeless conceptual graphic language, the 1000 numbered copies of each LONG BOOK will document works with different scales and formal contexts that extend the boundaries of architectural expression.

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