Betweenlines

AAMRA.


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Project Team: .h.i.v.y.a_g
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Photography:
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The project brief was to make a simple, maintenance friendly house, reflecting Client’s life ethos and work aesthetics. The purpose was also to engage children and adults alike with the bucolic, verdant landscape of hinterlands. Slow down time, and give into the demands of a farm life.
Spatially, the House was to have a generous living, Verandah area, well designed service area and sleeping quarters for two families. It was to remain nestled and be inconspicuous amidst the Mango trees. Early on the material palette was decided to be raw cement oxide, earth and Kota stones, burrowing shades from its surroundings.


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Project Team: .h.i.v.y.a_g
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Photography:
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Antarya awards 2022. IIID relaunched its awards section as part of its Bi annual event Desinguru, as Antarya. The awards covers practices and projects from Karnataka. Among many categories open, we applied for “Sustainable Architecture” and won a commendation, for Breathe. The winner was .in, a practice we look upto, and its people we hold dear.
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.bangalore .in
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practices architecture

Between kitchen and bathrooms, we spend a good deal of time, balancing the aesthetics with functionality. A large Mirror opens up the place, and the rest of the material fits together to work together.

Off white and wood.
Many years ago, before pintrest took over people’s imagination, growing up around Madras christian college, characteristic of thick masonry work, stone culverts, smooth white plastered walls, red-oxide handrail over sinuous stair walls, polished cement floor and the unassuming wooden units became the definition of timeless simplicity. Traces of those first impressions can be seen reflecting in our work. Particularly at homes, that is made of light, shade and the owner’s warmth.

About the openings: wall ratio.
The ground floor spaces had the traditional 80’s solidly built wooden windows with multiple shutters and a layer of mesh. We decided to do away with them and replace it with sliding windows increasing the opening ratio by 50 percent more. Lesser the joints and layers more the operability of windows and the soft light pours in.

Lets talk about Foyer spaces.
Its an extended threshold of the house. A glimpse of inside is seen, but not yet accessible. When asked for more light in house, the foyer had to be least nudged upon.
The wooden ledges, seaters and shelves are all erstwhile doors, and cupboards from the same house. We undid the existing polish, that choked the natural beauty of the wood and found these brilliant, seasoned teak. Naturally we used every cm of it.

Effect of a green outdoors on its indoors. We appreciate the layers of light, shadow, and porosity this green cover brings to its indoor spaces.
The space is a home office addition, that could accommodate the openness seen here. Art, plant and furniture are all a result of ‘s excellent eye for accessorising.

About ‘s art in a span of 5 yrs for the same client.
The first image is her OG style mural. We have featured this in our page earlier. We like how the vibrance of plants are offset by the black and white graphics of the mural.
The second image is a mural fit for a blooming garden. The imagery is on an old water tank, perfectly functional. We added a layer of flamboyance to it with the steps, leaf imprints and a touch of Ina’s art.

The extension over two phases has been organic and simple. The space is to allow for various moods and activities of the day, from workout to socialising, always opening to the horizon full of plants.

Where there is sun, there is light and life. The house is as much about the outdoor spaces as the indoors. Architecture in the backdrop, life in the forefront.

3/3Manasa.
2018-till now we have had the opportunity to work on textile retail front, thanks to our association with , Chennai. We started out working for and were designing a Handloom cafe. We approached Manasa to create a mural, narrating “The story of the loom” . She quickly put this concept art together and shared it with us. It didn’t fly with the clients and we had to shelve it. Around came another textile icon with whom we pitched the idea again.

This time, Manasa augmented the loom story, with its presence in woman’s life and vice versa. So we have the makers and the buyers meet, at this utopian art frame.
Go visit and Dress materials, at Magrath road, Bangalore, to see the panoramic, breathtaking narrative at the store.
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with the role of woman in it and for it, cos we had 9 fold bigger palette to work with.
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Photo credits: ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ ➖

2/3 Manasa.
In 2016, rangde.in (Go check them out now) P2P financial services, was introduced to us by friend/client and we happened to do their workspace at Bannerghatta road, also getting to know nicest human founders, Smita and Ram.
Soon Rangde branched out to a direct artisan-customer handmade product sale model under the brand “Habba”. Though mostly an e-commerce space, it required a partition in the physical space to entertain walk in customers.
We would work with Rangde always, on a shoestring budget, and we called Manasa to make this partition.
Our mutual love to work with fabric, perhaps started here.
She hand stitched this entire partition panel and brought lines, folds, seams, crease, cut, like they are forces working on the fabric. At Architecture school we often speak of these forces in the context of land and urban fabric. As small the scale of panel may be, we were excited to see academic ideas transcend to practice.
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Photo credits: ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ ➖

1/3 Manasa.
This one is special, hence the share will span across three posts. started out as an architect with us and found her passion for doodling at our studio. 5 yrs, since this Mural, she is now a full time artist. We have managed to commission works to her more frequently than the rest.

Project here is of a residential renovation for (one of our coolest and most professional client).
We spoke of the afternoon sun and hanging climbers from atop. Thats about what we told Manasa. She wanted a ladder, painted base wall and no human contact for 3 days. And we got this in return.

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Photo credits: ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ ➖

Signing off for the week, with an image from one of our dearest projects, at Jayanagar, Bangalore.
Back in 2016, we wanted to give it all, to the only retail outlet of the brand, irrespective of the budget constraints. So, interns doubled as Marketing and Viscom team painting logos and narrating the History of the brand.
Meanwhile went back to his “pen and ink” style and illustrated a handloom weaver at the entrance wall. It was few weeks before he rendered the sketch in life size, stenciled it and then assembled it at site and spray paint finished it.

One can guess, who did more mural painting and back drop design works at between the two of us.

The wall was our first attempt at retail branding, infographics and illustration for a project outside architectural services, and a foundation in fetching more,Textile retail interior works in the later years.

Did I mention we discovered a selfie wall, unintentionally😁

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Sometime in the period of 2013-15, we had interns and architects at office, from RVCA and other institutions who had a keen interest in drawing. While we didnt think of this as art in its conventional sense, we knew that we were standing in front of an ocean of possibilities, in the realm of “Super graphics” and “ Mural art”. So as part of our then studio space renovation we asked and to work on fun signages. Thus started our interest in investing on at least a wall, in most projects, in exploring, colours, patterns, and expressions. It also marks the beginning of our long running collaboration with our employees, ex employees and students till date.

Image 01 - Homer Simpson prompting on a low ceiling height on a sea blue oxide wall by .

Image 02 - The duo shyly celebrating their work of art, done and documented.

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Photo credits: ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ ➖

After a long break from creating posts, and an overwhelming year beginning, we are revisiting the portfolio series, this time with focus on .

People who follow instantly can identify the style and imagery here. His art is fearless. The other half of practice, I.e, I draw a lot of courage and strength from this character. Legend has it,
that more whiskey than paint was consumed to make this piece of work.

01. Image from Lego house (Our home and office building) with a tree core, punching bag/counter weight to a vertical sliding door, and the Pollockish backdrop, with our son, merging perfectly, epitomising our life and work in 2011.

02. Image of the same wall after, and , moved in and brought more art, music and love with them.
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▫️Year-2003,
▫️Place -Auromodele - Auroville,
◽️Architect- Roger Anger
First evertime we witnessed the idea of building from earth, off earth and for earth. The earth series comes full circle 18yrs later, where we at this Mun(Earth) veedu, are building the house right off the earth and boulders found in its underbelly. The image shows the material and our love for it unadultered.

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◽️Project: M-Veedu, Bangalore
◽️Team: Guru Prasanna C, Deepa Suriyaprakash, Vanessa D souza, Meenal Suresh, Dheeraj Belagaonkar, Thamanna Fatima, Aswani, Varsha Nambiar, Rubin Joseph
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The practice has an underlying interest in testing material, first by understanding its physical properties, strength, porosity, malleability, et all and then subverting it.

In the last of earth series, we present the pursuit of our holy grail i.e Rammed earth. We started chasing this material since 2009, and have had multiple versions of shuttering systems sorted and designed. The key is in it. The shuttering system. The modularity and multiplicity of it. We gave failed, we have won, but never gave up.

In baking terms if Klin brick is Banana bread, and CSEB is a multigrain bread, Rammed earth would be Sourdough.
There are things you dont predict. Things dont shape unless you fail.
And everytime you deshutter, you can smell the earth and its versatility.

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◽️Project: M-Veedu, Bangalore
◽️Team: Guru Prasanna C, Deepa Suriyaprakash, Vanessa D souza, Meenal Suresh, Dheeraj Belagaonkar, Thamanna Fatima, Aswani, Varsha Nambiar, Rubin Joseph
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The practice has an underlying interest in testing material, first by understanding its physical properties, strength, porosity, malleability, et all and then subverting it.

Bricks are unforgiving. CSEB (Compressed stabilised earth blocks) bricks, particularly so. Back in 2009, we started reasearching, understanding and testing the earth mix, to make our first set of CSEB using Aurampress from Auroville earth institute. While the material comes with high energy efficiency and other eco friendly features, we took that for granted, for its a given, were obsessed with the brick as a grain of the building. We would channel, construct, reveal, hide, chamfer, cut, puncture, scoop and project with it. We may have done a few buildings with klin bricks eversince, but always go back to the press, earth and moulds. Something about starting from scratch. Something about formative projects.
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◽️Project: M-Veedu, Bangalore
◽️Team: Guru Prasanna C, Deepa Suriyaprakash, Vanessa D souza, Meenal Suresh, Dheeraj Belagaonkar, Thamanna Fatima, Aswani, Varsha Nambiar, Rubin Joseph
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The practice has an underlying interest in testing material, first by understanding its physical properties, strength, porosity, malleability, et all and then subverting it.

Earth walls, do well with sufficient protection in the form of over hangs. In this ongoing project we found ourselves at the East and West end of the house without the budget to extend the roof slab as an overhang. So ‘s idea of using the stone trims as micro “chajjas” protecting each layer of brick course was executed.

Trims of granite slabs are a common sight at the Quartz/granite dealers processing units, and if you are friendly enough, you can get a truck load for few thousands. As we planned for a 90mm projection matching the ht of the brick course, we we worked out the counter load, infill and mortar thickness as a combination of forces and the knowledge we gained from working with the material in our earlier projects.
Building graphics and material are intertwinned in the practice, explaining the gradient found in stone trims.

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◽️Project: M-Veedu, Bangalore
◽️Team: Guru Prasanna C, Deepa Suriyaprakash, Vanessa D souza, Meenal Suresh, Dheeraj Belagaonkar, Thamanna Fatima, Aswani, Rubin Joseph
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The practice has an underlying interest in testing material, first by understanding its physical properties, strength, porosity, malleability, et all and then subverting it.
Project here explores, treating the void spaces (balconies), providing privacy and security, using polished-processed granite slab.
The material shifts to a dual tone, when a single brick course holds up the uniformly slim stone slab. Flame finished Sadarahalli granite slabs are often sized and used as cladding material, and we pushed the envelope by turning it on the side, waiting through the process of the construction course by course.

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◽️Project: Trellis House, Bangalore
◽️Team: Deepa Suriyaprakash, Chandrakanth GM
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The practice has an underlying interest in testing material, first by understanding its physical properties, strength, porosity, malleability, et all and then subverting it.
One of our early projects, showcased here, wanted to test the ability of stone in being an infill material. Stone walls are usually thick and relies on its load bearing capacity. We wanted to see how thin it can be if it were an infill wall, this venture started wanting to use the granite fence posts horizontally, and fill the concrete frames. With the unmanageable size and variations, we resorted to picking thicker slabs found in quarry, deemed too thick or cumbersome for use, a larger version of “Chapdi” stones, and slicing them along the cross section. We ended up with the stone bricks 4-5” thick, and 2-2.5’ long. In the process, we reduced the consumption of material by one half of conventional requirement, learnt about the fragility of stone, and the benefit of sourcing material local.

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◽️Project: Stone house, Thally, Tamilnadu
◽️Team: Guru Prasanna C, Deepa Suriyaprakash, Chandrakanth GM
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. Projects driven through a singular choice of material, its potential as a building element, and our interpretation of what its limits are.
The Bottle house is one of our earliest project, that is a result of play, experimental and dichromatic approach to the project, with a material in focus, i.e Beer bottles.
The arrangement of bottles akin to a brick (header and footer) course and the binding material, mud mortar were pretty much the definition of the envelope, with essential elements added to the bare space.

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◽️Project: The Bottle House, Bengaluru.
◽️Team: Guru Prasanna C, Deepa Suriyaprakash, Rajesh Silla.
◽️Contractor: Thatch Developers Pvt ltd.
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