Weekend House

The Weekend House nestles in the valley of a small ridge at Talegaon in Pune and is a neat modern building. It is a house stripped down to its bare essentials, devoid of embellishment and free of any ornament.

Faced with the challenging task of designing a house that spans across a natural ridge formation, we came up with a solution that least interferes with the seasonal drainage patterns of the site. The upper floating mass contains the main living areas while the naturally formed cavity underneath houses a cosy family space. 

A remarkable aspect of the project is the client’s brief mentioning: “ Build upon an idea that comes to you in an instant. I don’t want a house where the conceptualisation is laboured and complicated”. Staying true to the brief, the basic concept was developed in a few deft pencil strokes, which eventually then became the “guiding forces”. 

The entry to the house is through a finely proportioned abstraction of a street with shifting axii. An interesting “twist in the tale” is an existing tree splitting the street or the axis into two, one leading straight to the main entrance and the second to the terrace of the building. The building design, although very simple, has been tweaked and finely nuanced to respond to the available views. Various vantage points have been identified and slits introduced in the exterior walls which bring a slice of the outside into the inside. The sides of the “box” have been skewed to create a finely heightened sense of perspective. 

The viewing deck on the upper living level is connected to the lower court by a cantilevered, sculptural staircase. The landscaped court induces a sense of repose and serenity. The focal point of the court is a finely proportioned lotus pond which in fact also collects the natural water run-off of the ridge. Existing stone boulders from the site became key landscape features. There are strategically positioned porthole-like openings at various locations like the oner near the staircase leading to the terrace. The prism funnel shaped receptacles draw in light into the compact toilets. 

The interior design language takes a cue from the minimalistic architecture of the house keeping the furniture's colours and elements inside to the bare minimum. The floor and ceiling seamlessly flow from exterior to interior and between the rooms too.

The crux of the design lies in the serenity achieved by the sensitive composition of spaces, volumes and textures. One realises that there is a very fine line between doing too much and not doing enough and this weekend house is finely balanced on that very fine line. 

Location : Talegaon, Pune

Year: 2007-09

Status: Completed

Built-up Area: 2200 sq. ft

Photography: Sunil Humane

Landscape: Shruti Humane

Design Team: Designedge Partnership - Santhosh M P & Sunil Humane, Aparna Santhosh, Thanikaivel Selvaraj & Nidhi Pahade