A Wedged Haus | DIG Architects

Wedged Haus

The Apartment:

The apartment is situated on the 31st floor of a high rise situated next to a busy Mumbai street. It’s a 4BHK with a carpet area of 1800sft with couple of large balconies.


BIGGER IDEA: wedges and angular surfaces

This idea works at differential scales throughout the apartment getting expressed in different forms and changing materiality. This idea gets extended in the form of custom designed artwork in a similar language. Having said that the apartment follows a strict code of clean lines and minimalistic material Pallate. Materials transition seamlessly from spaces to space getting expressed with differentiation as per the meaningfulness meant for individual space.
Color blocking technique has been effectively used by planting an individual color in each space to offset the otherwise muted Pallate.

KITCHEN

One of the larger moves following this idea is the kitchen block. During the space planning phase we kept the position of the kitchen where it originally was. The iterations introduced were as follows

1. Getting rid of the brick walls and replacing them with a wooden cuboid that would house the whole space.
2. Detaching the verticals from the ceiling to make it seem like a standalone object and allowing natural light.
3. Piercing the object as locations to create interactivity.
4. Staggering the woodwork cross sectionally to house functional utilities.

The entire block is finished in light oak veneer to impart monolithic presence.


Flow of spaces :

The L shaped living room abuts the kitchen block. The longer arm houses the formal and informal seating and the shorter arm alongside the kitchen entrance accommodates 6 seater dining table. The flooring throughout the apartment is in Ceppo De Gre marble which looks like naturally occurring monochromatic terrazzo. The walls and ceiling are finished in cementacious lime plaster. The Light Oak of the kitchen stands out against the backdrop of these muted materials. The height of the Cross sectional Minnotti sofa is just enough to connect with the balcony at eye level marking it an essential part of the living room. Custom made ‘Yin Yang’ and cuboid artworks enhance the idea of skewed objects further. Blue is the color of essence in this space which shows itself in the form of an ombré rug, wall artwork installation and a navy blue velvet curtain.

The passage connecting the living room opens up into three adjoining bedrooms including an entrance to the powder toilet.

The extension of the idea can be seen in the guest room in the form of a copper cuboid wedged in the headboard stone panelling. The overall neutral Pallate of terrazzo, white back painted glass and grey stone accentuates the reflective nature of copper wedge making it into a central object.

Similarly in son’s bedroom a light installation in Nero metal goes onto the bedside table in the form of wedged light installation unfolding into the side table itself. The headboard wall which has this installation is made in grey ribbed wooden slats with smoked glass at the background of it. This arrangement allows the entire wall to breath creating an illusion of depth due to the subtle reflection created. Again, the neutrality of the overall space is broken by color blocking, an ochre yellow curtain in this case.

Master bedroom at the end of the hallway has a ribbed panelling in Oak for the entirety of headboard wall. Couple of instances, firstly the black leather headboard itself and secondly the wedged-popping out custom copper light installation break the monotony of the ribbed panelling. Material Pallate is a continuation from the other other spaces which constitute Ceppo de Gre marble (which rolls onto the heard board wall) and Oak veneer (which rolls onto the ceiling) throughout the bedroom. Color blocking is present in the form of Violet curtain and Husk Chair which offset the otherwise muted color Pallate of the space.

Library cum AV space at the fag end of the apartment sits with an extendable day bed and a book case grid that hold TV and a keyboard within the framework.