Active Voice Quote:
The aroma of ripe mangoes, the rustle of leaves in the orchard, and the journey to the patch of blue in secret gardens—how wonderful it is to call me ‘home’, somewhere only you know.
the space given a voice of its own
Once dominated by steel and coal industries, Raipur’s industrial cityscape is now witnessing a surge in modern residential developments prioritising green spaces. Routing the green connect to expansive residences — a phantasm, mirage, and slice of heaven swept up in the embrace of mango trees, The Three Stooges emulates this and then some more. The adage of ‘three’s a crowd’ takes a backseat here, scripting a narrative that eternally weds the landscape dispersed over two acres and the built form.
The brief was unconventional: to conceive a very MuseLAB-coded home without posing as a space that would be visually synonymous with us. The dichotomy didn’t end there. The clients desired a farmhouse-esque dwelling that was also urban in its DNA, an impeccably detailed home that somehow also felt lived-in. Our thoughts converged on sculpting a residence that celebrated imperfections, rusticity, and the bounty the land was bestowed with.
Instead of the land playing second fiddle as the mere backdrop to the dwelling, the home is imagined as a love letter to the context — a parcel of earth graced by lakefront views, rolling lawns, and a mango orchard in suburban Raipur. The home anchors three bedrooms and communal areas such as a living room, home theatre, lounge, kitchen, and dining spaces. The residence peers across the garden at a concrete cuboidal outhouse tethered to the main block through an embedded pool. The latter poses as a connective thread that courses through the site’s expanse and culminates in the pavilion-like space that enables the family to entertain amid the greens.
A trio of structures, the residential block is a composition of dynamic forms braided together by scaling vaults. Brick’s cameo as the building’s exoskeleton is carried through to the inside, bringing a sense of tactility which grants the interiors a modest yet moody intimacy. The ivory-washed shell reflects the sunlight, the culled-out fenestrations lure in views of the garden, and the brick cladding’s terracotta further riffs off the emerald tones of greenery.
Assaying how the built form can be opened, contorted, closed, and spliced has resulted in a dwelling that brews magic indoors while romancing its surroundings. The home is almost sculptural in its mien, only that its heart rests in the palm of the great outdoors, in the garden.
