Cube House – Maya Architects

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Maya Architects, a Bangalore based studio, focuses on a simplistic interplay of forms and cultural configurations while designing the Cube House.

Set amidst a low rise residential context, the house sits on a 30’ by 60’ plot, off the outer ring road in Bangalore. The house is predominantly surrounded by two storeyed homes and is approached by a 30’ wide road along the eastern face. By way of a natural 5’ site gradient, the terrain offers tremendous potential for exploration in design.

The client brief called for the design of a contemporary 3 bedroom home, complete with a living, dining, kitchen & utility, prayer space, family room and parking space for 2 vehicles.

Designed with reference to tradition, another challenge that the architects faced was ensuring that the design was compliant with Vastu - a traditional science of design based on alignment and orientation, dictating the placement of rooms.

The house revisits vernacular notions of sequential space planning and architectural proportions, native to the courtyard housing typology of south India, where rooms are clustered around a central open to sky court.

The house is conceived as an array of cubes that are essentially spatial volumes that interact with each other. Spaces are primarily laid out across two levels, in order of three varying degrees of privacy – public, semi private and private. The two dimensional framework is extruded to form volumes that are architecturally manipulated in response the programme. The building facades are a testament to the clarity of vision and process of evolution of the form. References to this idea of cubes also permeate to the finest level of detail in the design.

In order to tackle the natural slope with minimal intervention the house was designed in section. The conscious creation of split-levels to allows for spatial interaction across volumes of overlooking areas. The courtyard behaves as a void amidst volumes of built-a subtracted space that creates a sense of spatial continuity and expanse, blurring the rigid boundaries of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. Besides performing its role in a climate controller in a tropical region, the courtyard also becomes a unifying element - a place where the family gets together and unwinds. Simplicity in approach, clarity in vision and a thorough understanding of the client’s priorities is reflected in the design of this home. Here’s a building that does not try too much to impress but instead is simply a reaction to its context.

Project:	Cube House
Location:	Bangalore
Design Team:	Naveen Deshpande & Dev Kumar
Structural Engineer:	M/s Jinka Consultants
Civil Contractors:	Mr. Papanna & Co.
Site Area:	18,000 sft
Built Up Area:	35,000 sft
Project Year:	2008 - 2009