Water Stone Farm

Water Stone Farm

New Delhi, 2010

Client: Aryas   |   Site Area: 1 Acre   |   Project Type: Residential Farmhouse   |   Team: DADA and Partners (Architects) and Design Process (Landscape)

The design of the house began with the notion of creating a series of experiential spatial constructs. At an ideological level, the design was imagined to be shaped by a ritualised event. Along with it came the layering or sequencing of movement, thresholds, symbolic markers, etc. And as if to contest this formal beaux-arts order, the informal part of the house (south of the pool) is assembled in a more playful manner. Here again, single-level stone clad monolithic panels/walls seem to define the threshold between the informal spaces and the pool court.

The entry forecourt is designed as a predominantly hardscaped, enclosed experience with cobble stone driveway and a stone plaza around it. A dense and linear groove of seasonal flowering trees towards the south end along with a large gravel bed are the only softening elements used here. A 10-feet high sandstone clad wall, alluring in its understatement, acts as the first threshold. A series of digressions artfully erode the monolithic integrity; a seemingly random narrow slit opening roughly in the center (allowing views to the farthest end), a temple in the shape of a cantilevered white cube; and a projecting volume of the main house floating over the south face of the stone wall.