RH21

Move of the Glacial/// the glacier ///

RH21 is architecture of fluidity frozen in space- rigidity or lack of it created to accommodate the staring facets around it. RH21 becomes an expression of poetics and politics expected of architecture of a house. It is a spatiality versus availability, a physicality versus spirituality, a fluidity in rigidity, an uncertainty in complexity overall a varying presence in motion, in feeling, in the triangle of Kandinsky; the triangle is moving slowly yet steadily.

In the relentless and restlessness of a city, can one seek solitude, Privacy and a lone time? With all the sounds of drills, hawkers and horns honking away every second of every day, how can one begin to find oneself? How can one not get lost in all this? May be there is seeking in this whirlpool of life happening. May be each congestion by the day brings out the character and nature of a being in clarity. This is a journey, a journey of a family through the lows to the highs, tormented, banished, resurgent now, and sought now!

As crystalline forms under pressure from whence one seeks, so is RH21, sculpting itself under the posited pressure-that which has created an architecture of perspective in postures dramatically presenting itself in the uncompromisingly packed neighbourhood.

Every twist every turn every panel with its sun gives the architecture a quality similar to a crystalline formation, or a ship to sail steered with able hands.  A turn that is in motion of a dynamic presence, a structured presence. Unparalleled, obstructed but-[un], twisted in turn, crystalline to its move, movement in this moor.

“The whole triangle is moving slowly, almost invisibly towards and upwards where the apex was today the second segment is tomorrow, what today can be understood only by the apex and to the rest of the triangle is an incomprehensible gibberish, forms tomorrow the true thought and feeling of the second segment.”

VASSILY KADINSKY, “The movement of triangle”

The architecture is slowly reacting to the physical quantities around, there by forming itself, realising itself, and accepting itself. Just a glacier landforms are distinctive, walled, recessional, striations- RH21 has also carved itself distinctively, walled itself in, lateral recessional in presence, seemingly erratic with its striations. RH21 has a Glacial quality to it. Slow, steady and steadfast. 

INITIATION

The client and his family is a stronghold of 3 brothers and all their families living together in a dense urbanity of Hyderabad. This dwelling is for several families with individuality to be accommodated inside one single building, and achieve in 819 SqMts and is to be a reflection of them-their lives lead in toil and their remaining lives to be lead in the rides and tides of life.

Barren all around when the construction began picking up the pace with in a span of 2 years the tectonics of the architecture was to react to its surroundings which were undeniable and unreal. With planes jutting, volumes projecting, lines piercing all seemed unnatural and only too natural in, and possible only in the context laid.

MANIFESTATION

From a state of forgotten lands and farther lands the site was developed with an understanding of possible conflicts of SPACE around. The architectonics reacted to not just the requirements sprung from the cultural need of the client but also the contextual need shifting, forcing and moving each plane, room, volume and, line away-toward-upward-inward and so on creating  a reactionary architecture of its own.

A SCREEN as a plane is to protect, and create a contrast to the grey of the walls and volumes. To bring in both light and air into a closely packed and fortressed exterior devoid of any openings directly on the surfaces was compensated with multilevel- staggered courtyards and a large planar parametric screen. It becomes a deliberation in the social constructs through the architectural tectonic- a plane. The EXISTING CONSTRUCTS have dictated the proposed openings not on the vertical surfaces but on the horizontal ones bringing in a continuation expected between an expected separations of families of one singular name as a unit.

DISTINCTION | CAPTIVATION

The immediate prominent feature only next to the imposing volumes of the architecture is the SCREEN. Under immense pressures a diamond is shaped. Under similar circumstances a profound clarity comes to a human. The tectonics under play is always reminders of one’s move, next move. A screen here holds a dichotomous position- of symbolic presence and of being a modern reaction is creating a presence unexpected of the place, of the architecture “Yes!”, but of the context, not immediately. 

SITE & INSIDE The plot is of 819 SqMts (8,816 SqFt) an area surrounded by a dense residential urban housing. The site is a cul-de-sac forming a point of focus on a narrow street flanked either side by rising residential towers. With a Built up area is 941 SqMts (10,129 SqFt) it houses 7 sleeping quarters with shared and individual courtyards, 3 living spaces, common dining and kitchen, a large study and recreation room next to a gym.