Recently I read about a case in India, in Mumbai precisely, where a village designed by Sanjay Puri Architects will be realized. This project was awarded at the World Architecture Festival in the category Residential, and received many others rewards.
The village we are talking about is residential and it will be positioned on a steep and shaped site, creating descending apartments along the slopes of the existing land allowing each apartment to open up in a series of terraces and gardens; an organic design solution, sustainable without distorting the original nature of the territory. Indeed as if the village is part of the slope.
Each apartment has been designed like a single house blending perfectly with the ground, creating the minimum of interference with the earth. Built mostly with a local basalt autochthonous stone, the design that has emerged creates a sustainable environment with minimal cutting and change of the land. The orientation of the houses is to the north in response to average temperatures ranging from 30° – 35°.
The most interesting thing from my point of view is the creation of the many terraces that seem to be the continuation of the house with amazing and uninterrupted architectural fluidity. They are in fact protected by wooden pergolas to respond to the hot, dry climate during the whole year in this place. These pergolas are designed with the appropriate holes to allow trees to rise.
The result is amazing; the feeling is to have a garden inside the home, a tree in the house. I think it will be an extraordinary landscape design project that respects the environment, rather that lets the nature enter in the home.
Green is truly a unique and exceptional creative tool. It can make a difference not only in terms of aesthetics, but especially in relation to the environment. This latest word is thus emblematic, it’s place where we live, where we are immersed in and that we have to care about like it is a part of ourselves.
Marco Sandrini, Chief Landscape Designer at Sandrini Green Architecture
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