Fact File
Location: Hyderabad
Size: 1490 sq m
Principal Architect: Chaitanya D K
Photographs courtesy: Design Architecture Studios
RH23 by Design Architecture Studios is a constructivist abode where the design intent references a verse from the Katha Upanishad. One only recognises one’s presence and thoughts as significant and worthy if one sees the importance of the role that one plays in the lives around them. Beyond the soul (atman) exists the unknown, obscure self, unknown and waiting, just as they choose to be more than the mind, more than intelligence. In the same manner, the architecture of this home is not just its walls, volumes, or the imposing form of exposed concrete. Beyond the solidarity of structure, it seeks a presence to resonate with through the expectations of architecture spring reason, direction, and an innate desire for meaning.
A translated verse from Katha Upanishad states:
“Mind stands above the senses; farther on are its intelligences;
The Great self is in the beyond; the obscure Superior surpasses them at yond.”
According to Adrian Forty, a home stands for feeling, sincerity, honesty, truth, and love. This representation of the home involved a complete dissociation of all things good from the public world and of all things bad from the domestic world. It was to transform this residence into a place of unreality, a haven for illusions. From the first layer of the building, the exterior, one experiences a sense of presence created by the six sentry-like, thick walls. At this level, an engagement is established with the visitor or passerby. The dynamic perspective of the structure begins at the property line. Through an oblique presence, it shifts along with its heavy planes from their perpendicularity to parallelity as the viewer moves along the band of the driveway to eventually stand right in front of the building.
On the other hand, the spatial character of the volumes has a different meaning; they begin with a vast openness of the outside, then a controlled opening of the in-between, and then an expected openness, followed by a double-height volume and a metaphorical isolation of oneself. The state of being created is dynamic, but it appears static and stable on the outside! A paradox? The art style that influenced the work of this architecture also seems static to the untrained eye, but is it? To create the right tectonics, a specific style was employed to bring out the strength and the weight displacement to their best capacities. The built tectonics demonstrate a clear layering of spaces one after the other, parallelly laid out to create a controlled spatial experience. These planes are constructed in an orthographic manner to define the public, semi-open, and private spaces of the house—both transversely and longitudinally. In some ways, the connections between these spaces begin from outside, gradually moving inwards and narrowing at each stage.
