Architecture · Interiors · Landscape — Tirupur, Tamil Nadu
A house designed
around its garden.
Wherever you stand, you are looking at something green.
Architecture · Interiors · Landscape — Tirupur, Tamil Nadu
Wherever you stand, you are looking at something green.
Location
Tirupur, Tamil Nadu
Plot Area
8,000 sq ft
Built-up
6,000 sq ft
Programme
5 BHK · G+1 · Home Theatre · Outhouse
Orientation
South-facing · East entry
Status
Completed
The Brief
The family wanted a home that did not feel like a house at all. They wanted to live among trees — to wake up to leaves, to dine looking at the garden, to sit in the evening with the sound of water from the verandah. The plot was generous, eight thousand square feet, south-facing on the short side with the requirement of the house entry from the east.
Most architects would have used the depth of the plot to build a bigger envelope. We did the opposite. The brief, taken seriously, asked for the house to be smaller than it could have been — to let the garden do the heavy lifting.
The mass is broken — solid volumes alternate with voids, balconies, and the open pergola above. The garden runs along the long side of the plot.
The Move
The plan is a series of rooms arranged so that no matter where you are standing, when you look up from what you are doing, you see something green. From the living room you see the front porch garden. From the dining you look directly into a private green court. From the family area in the middle of the house, doorways align like a telescope — through the brass jali, past the foyer, through the entrance, to the trees beyond.
This is not a layout you arrive at by accident. Every door, every opening, every wall position was tested for what it lets you see.
A single sightline runs the depth of the house — family area, through the entrance, to the trees outside.
Arrival
The entry from the east is not a clean approach to a front door. It is a slow sequence: stone-paved driveway, covered porch beneath a coffered timber grid, a few steps up over a strip of water, then the entrance door. By the time a guest arrives at the threshold, they have already spent thirty seconds in the landscape.
The coffered ceiling above the porch is the project's signature gesture. It filters the south sun into a soft grid of light and shadow on the floor below — and it gives the entrance the weight and ceremony that a south Indian home expects, without resorting to columns or ornament.
Left: the side garden, used as a working green spine. Right: the foyer — double-height timber ceiling, the brass jali screen marking the dining edge.
The Heart
The family area sits at the geometric centre of the plan. Above it, a cut-out opens through the first floor to the roof, drawing daylight down into the heart of the house and pulling hot air up and out. In Tamil Nadu's climate, this single move replaces a great deal of mechanical cooling.
It does emotional work too. The cut-out ties the two floors together — children upstairs can call down to parents below, family members on different levels still feel one another's presence. It is the room that gives the rest of the house its sukoon.
The cantilevered timber staircase sits in the double-height void — its long glass wall faces the jali screen, so even the climb is a view.
The Interiors
The interior palette holds to a single warm family — terracotta lime on the living room wall, teak cabinetry, travertine flooring, cream upholstery, and brushed brass for the screens. Nothing competes with what you see through the windows.
The dining table looks directly into a private side court — stone paths set into grass, framed by the wide timber door. The pooja sits centrally between the public living and private family rooms — accessible to guests and to family alike, as a Tamil home asks.
Left: dining opens directly onto its own green court. Right: the formal living room — one wall in terracotta lime, the rest left quiet.
Looking Back
Every photograph of this home has the same property: there is always something in the foreground, something in the middle ground, and something — almost always green — in the distance. That is not a styling decision by the photographer. It is the plan working as it was meant to.
For the family who lives here, that means the same thing every morning, every evening, every season: wherever they pause, the house is showing them their garden. The architecture has stepped out of the way.
Standing in the foyer — the timber ceiling, the brass screen, the staircase, and three different gardens, all in one frame.
Credits
Principal Architect Ar. Deepak Sahajwani
Associate Architect Ar. Ayushi Patel
Associate Interior Designer ID Vicky Gandhi
Site Engineer Mathesh
AC Consultant Sai Air Comfort Pvt Ltd
Electrical Contractor Udhayasundar
Plumbing Contractor Kesavan
Furniture Contractor Ganpath
Landscape Consultant Daksh Patel
Photography Prabal
Year of Completion 2024