Cest La Vie | Shobhan Kothari

A Second homes are about creating an oasis from the hectic pace of urban city life.
A site blessed with vegetation and seasonal lake provided the perfect setting for
this project. At the entrance were a clump of trees that provided for a grand entry
and also created just the necessary buffer for the house from the Main Street. The
driveway snaked its way past the canopy of trees to the entrance/arrival court
where you are received by a curved stone wall.
Designing in tropics is about creating the right balance of open and closed spaces.
The sun and other elements can be unforgiving in these conditions.
The house has been designed in clusters of program held together with a strong
circulation spine with the most of the facilities addressing the pool in the centre of
the house. The living dining pavilion is a glass box which has a deck extension
onto the pool on one side and private lawn on the other side bound by the arrival
court curved stone wall. This court is further enhanced with a water body fed by a
gargoyle that emerges from the curved wall.
The guest pavilion opposite the living pavilion houses 4 bedrooms with their
attached toilets. The pool bar and outdoor dining flanks one end of the pool while
three spouts edge the other end. Directly above the outdoor dining is the master
bedroom with its attached bathroom. The plunge pool attached to this room is
created as a getaway for the client and overlooks the lake.
The children's room is designed as a concept of box within a box and is
cantilevered. The wooden box sits inside the glass box.
At the far end of the pool is the jacuzzi and sunken seating which overlooks the
main lawn which has the tennis court at the end of the property. The games
pavilion is adjacent to the jacuzzi area.
The furniture has been kept aesthetically appealing but importantly practical and
strong emphasis on needing less maintenance. Surfaces are kept to withstand the
severity of the climate. The use of natural stone, natural wood, lighting which is
led driven and abundance of landscape allows the bungalow to be endorsed as ecofriendly.
Our design process is about creating moments...elemental and episodically
unfolding. The circulation within the house and spaces between functions need to
follow a sequence of activity. The volume of spaces is again defined by the
function.
The large open spaces, fluidity and transparency between spaces, the idea of
natural landscape interspersed with built form are all metaphorical for the client’s
nature.