Country - styled luxury evokes themes of timeless endurance in this palatial home at New-Delhi
The new relaxed country-styled residence by groupDCA plays out its layered intent over 8000 square feet of area on an acre-sized plot of farmland in New Delhi, India. The decisive colonial typology encompasses simple climate-conscious planning to sculpt a comfortable living experience for the suburbs of New Delhi,India. The ensuing design endows the home with generous spatial proportions, while maintaining a strong sense of understated charm in the grandeur of its overall appearance.
While designing for homes, architects have always looked for solutions that allow for intrinsically adaptive environments to flourish. Drawing references from the colonial antecedents of the subcontinent, old British bungalows showcase detailed outdoor spaces in their architectural repertoire by successfully adopting and adapting the traditional Indian verandahs as a form of respite from the unrelenting heat.
Similarly, in this dwelling, long shaded balconies reminiscent of Victorian ‘wrap-around’ porches, present a studied response to the client's needs for combined luxury with unfettered openness. The adaptive site design positions the residential block closer to the property's southwest corner. This ensures that the shade from the large existing trees eschews the home of traditional heat pockets when the rooms facing the north and the east bask in the northern lights, facing panoramic views of a well designed landscaped garden.
A curved driveway brings visitors from around a lush landscaped garden culminating at a roundabout ‘cul-de-sac’ near the entrance. At the entrance, users walk upward a gentle slope to transcend a grey thin plinth that repeats formally on the facade denoting familiar floor divisions on the grand white structure. While all through the length of the periphery, tapered white columns bind verandahs and windows together to create a deliberate rhythm that augurs well with the gravitas of the extended roof overhang.
The vaulted east-facing entrance reinforces direction and flow in the morning when it radiates generous natural light through a double-height volume into the central living area. A thinner section of the path leads to the rear end of the house where the western light casts long shadows across the grand staircase by the end of the day. Adjacent to the central transept, four symmetric zones divide themselves along preferential lines of views, function, and privacy, when they help to instinctively proliferate the hierarchical intent of the design through a traditional symmetric arrangement.
Splitting the palatial house into two, the indented profile of the central living room seeks to include the vast outdoor garden within the building’s footprint. On the other hand, by splitting the residence between the east and the west, the central transept on the ground floor doubles as a transitional space between the garden facing living room and the dining area. The vibrant interior design of every room responds to sharp and subtle tonal differences created serendipitously by the incident indian sunlight filtering past the individual verandahs.
With a wealth of supple architectural features, the Victorian influences imbue the home with a valid sense of timeless warmth. Their consistent application lends a new softness to the majestic aura of the place with its large-scale rooms, fireplaces, vaults and ornate cornices. Characteristic rooms personalise space with custom wall panelling while chandeliers unite with modern lighting to illuminate bespoke furniture and upholstery. Panels of purposeful wainscotting add to the overall grandeur while fulfilling specific functional needs at designated areas. Rich colours, parquet wooden flooring and slender window sections fill the space with thoughtfulness and warmth while simultaneously regaling users of a bygone era.
Allowing for new adaptive segregation, the two kitchens on each floor of the house promote privacy and inclusivity interchangeably ,as they accommodate for the varying needs of the residents. Nestled within the outdoor garden, the independent gym structure additionally houses a set of separate toilets that cater to the outdoor party requirements of the residence while tucking away a subterranean servant quarters below.
In all of its endeavours, the robust design intent utilises classical planning tropes to promote adaptive spatial combinations that cater to the ever changing postures of modern cosmopolitan living. In the larger context of the site, the country-house styled design actualizes its landscaped gardens and strategic water bodies to improve upon time tested microclimatic ideas that blend holistically with the derived typology of the structure.
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NOTES - Plans description et.al
The British in India sought respite from unfamiliar climates by adopting and adapting the Indian verandah into their architectural repertoire.
Adjacent to the central transcepts, the layered hierarchy of the home proliferates its intent across four distinct zones. Two corners at the rear end replicate a three bedroom suite plan over two floors.On the south-east, the symmetrical floor plan houses a private kitchen for the residents at the top floor and a servant access kitchen at the ground floor.
From the driveway, a tall arched entryway opens out into a vaulted central transept acting as a transitional pathway across semi-public zones of the house. The east facing central path radiates light into the common living area beyond which a thinner section of the pathway leads to bedrooms and culminates at a generous staircase near the internal lift.
Wallpapers Chandeliers Ornamentations Tapestries Upholstery Damask Wainscotting Rich Colors Parquet Flooring and Dramatic window treatments.
Broadly dividing the palatial house into two zones, the central living area of the house opens out to the garden from a patio facing the pool.
In keeping with its victorian - styled influences, the choice of the design style endows the home with generous proportions while maintaining a strong sense of understated grandeur.
The home includes moldings, ornate gables, and wraparound porches. The juxtaposition of a Victorian backdrop with contemporary furnishings
Fusing practicality with a colonial aesthetic, colonial verandahs are visually characterised by large overhangs and deep inset windows. Similarly, the overhangs at this residence at Chhatarpur protect the interiors from the sun and rain, while the windows continue to offer panoramic landscape views.
The apt way to allow for luxurious openness in the tropics is to look for answers in our early colonial homes.
As architects, we always look for solutions that allow for adaptive environments, especially in residential spaces. Many traditional window systems discourage users from opening the windows regularly without adequate mechanisms to account for mosquitoes or other harshness of nature.
The design positions the residential block on the southwestern corner of the property.
Rooms facing the north and east capitalise on unhindered views of lawns in this acre-sized farmhouse at Bandh Road, New Delhi.
With dedicated open spaces for landscaped gardens. Thus, by making the home intrinsically climate-responsive, large windows allow the best rooms to bask in the prevailing hues of the north and east without the hassles of natural vagaries.
Amit’s Pointers
So within that symmetry we created different volumes different spaces different heights different levels to create that drama.
but the sheer proportion and scale and the detailings. I think make this face look in a very subtle way
Unique and exciting about designing the interior of a Victorian home is that the wealth of architectural features is the basis of a fantastic starting point, be it fireplaces, cornices, tiled floors, wonderful staircases, or large scaled rooms. They work as well now with modern-day living as they did in the Victorian era.
I think there's not a mammoth structure which looks in your face. So there's a layering to the Heights - the flooring is for black and white which is reminiscent of again typical, right from Lake Palace and therefore to a lot of colonial buildings had that kind of flooring and patterns. So it was just a take on that.Except for accent places where we have done some panelings all of the walls are simple paint molding works and painted. there's no extra happening somewhere.
So it's like winters also, you use those spaces nicely without adding those heaters. Of course these high places all electric. We're not gonna light actual wood fire in them. But you don't need to add that
But I don't know again the requirement of every space getting proper spell-outs getting openness getting cross ventilation getting good light from two sides big Windows privacy. So it was the outcome of the double height living room and the double height entrance passageway. So the whole grandiose that comes with the whole spaces so it sort of has a huge sense of symmetry to the whole thing to create that majesticness to create that colonial law, but also was the outcome of the detailed requirements and it was not a victim to the sense of that symmetry or I mean typically when you do Colonial architecture when you do sort of classical look you end up you have to be symmetrical. So here we got that symmetry at the same time.
so there there is a drama. There's that Grandview without being in your face. There's that majesticness without being there's that opulence, but it's not over the top. It's very grounded in many ways. It's very soft in many ways
So yeah, they wanted something classical. For here to begin with they wanted something really nice. But also that was the mutual discussions which led to the formation of the style where we thought that the whole take on Colonial adaptation to Tropical architecture. Would be a very appropriate solution to this kind of. location
I mean exterior fireplaces all Incorporated so that everything gets you throughout the season.
extra element of a heater. I think similarly the fans were Incorporated which is people don't put fans these days and then they add good additional fans and all which looks stupid but you need them. So you need fire.
Understood, So apart from the windows the other material choices whether any particular references the other stucco walls for example inside or are they record to match it
