VAAZH: A Breathing Home in Vedanthangal

May 9, 2025

VAAZH: A Breathing Home in Vedanthangal

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In an age where urban homes often seal themselves off from the world, VAAZH (to live) — a modest residence nestled in Tamil Nadu’s Vedanthangal — offers a radical alternative: a house that breathes, belongs, and gently blurs the line between nature and nurture. Conceived as a living sanctuary by Venkatesh Satiz of Vy architecture studio for Chennai-based client Manimaran, VAAZH is rooted in memory, shaped by vernacular wisdom, and awakened by the rhythm of birdsong and rain.

“I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree…”

This poetic longing expressed by W.B. Yeats echoes deeply in the heart of Mr. Manimaran, a Chennai native whose soul yearned not for concrete, but for earth. For a slower, rooted life in the quiet wilderness of Vedanthangal—a place where the skies are swarming with migratory birds and the earth is allowed to breathe.

The village called Vedanthangal has a bird sanctuary, and within Vedanthangal is a small sub-village called Thandar Pettiah, which translates to “drummers slum.” People who played drums, a percussion instrument from South India, during funerals live in this place. While Vedanthangal is about 6.5km in radius, within it Thandarpettiah is so small that it has only about 35-55 houses within its confines. And the house that the client wanted to be built was within this small radius within Thandari Pettaih. Architect Venkatesh, along with the client, Manimaran with ancestral origins from this village, grew up enveloped in nature, birds and an idyllic life unaltered by the spoils of the city, therefore understood his client’s needs for a house that is one with nature.

Thinnai- a place all about coming together

“The houses in Thandari Pettaih have no fences, but followed an open plan with a courtyard like space in the centre. It was a cluster like settlement, with a central area kept free for functions,” he says, “The community-like living practices here is one to be preserved as the entire village breathes and live as one entity. If there is a marriage in one family, the entire village celebrates.”

Manimaran, his wife, and three children had lived their entire lives in the dense heartbeat of Chennai. A self-described workaholic, he found peace only in rare retreats to his ancestral village. “When I come to this village, I feel a deep sense of peace,” he confesses. The pandemic, in all its upheaval, offered a silver lining: the chance to work remotely, to leave behind the hum of air conditioners and pixelated meetings, and to craft a different kind of life. One rooted in mud, rain, and open sky.

Thus, was born VAAZH—a Tamil word that means “to live.” It is more than a home; it is a quiet rebellion against the synthetic way of live.

“This house does not seek to dominate the landscape but to dissolve into it. A gentle intervention in a sensitive ecology,” describes Venkatesh, who understood the clients’ brief a little too well.

“As architects, the challenge was to sculpt not just a house, but a sanctuary—for a family, for wildlife, for memories. Referencing vernacular Tamil architecture—especially mud construction and courtyard houses—the design language is earthy and intuitive. It embraces history while meeting the sensibilities of a contemporary urban family,” says Venkatesh.

For Venkatesh, who designs with intuition, passion, and heart, this project was especially meaningful, rooted in childhood memories that became the cornerstone of the design.

The north-facing site lies amid a cluster of family-owned homes, in a neighbourhood with no walls, only thresholds. The thinnai—a raised veranda common to Tamil homes—forms this threshold, acting as the physical and emotional bridge between private and public life. Here, neighbours share gossip, dogs find shade, and children play. It is, quite simply, the heart of belonging.

“This is a place that is all about living without much barriers, a neighbourhood where houses were more open than walled off, where conversations were free and un-adultered, where honesty and trustworthiness were virtues that were of value,” explains Venkatesh.

The layout unfolds in three bands: communal spaces like the thinnai, living room, and courtyard lie at the fore, followed by the kitchen and then private bedrooms—all visually connected in a linear flow. At its core,VAAZH embraces a courtyard, carved gently by a curving wall.

This curved wall is both poetic and practical. On the west, it shields the house from the harsh sun; to the east, it sweeps up into the roofline, inviting in the morning light. Perforations in this wall let sunlight paint dancing patterns on the oxide floor. When it rains, water trickles in, and the soil soaks it up like memory. River rocks placed in the courtyard are not just decorative—they evoke the nearby stream, offering a tactile connection to place.

The Construction of the Dream House

The architect has used mud from the village to create the walls. “We used red soil, mixed with blue chips and 4% to 6% of cement and then poured within the shutters and set it to create the walls,” says Venkatesh, who believes that this building is more culture friendly than it is eco-friendly. In his words, “I don’t trust this eco-friendly building. I used it as the entire village, is built with mud and so I used it to culturally connect it with the surrounding houses.”

The success of the mud structure was the result of a challenging journey of trial and error, which the architect described as a valuable learning experience on the way to the final outcome.

“The house took over nine months for completion, with a dedicated team trained from Auroville, where I also spent time to learn about mud architecture,” explains Venkatesh. He also experimented on a longer span of mud wall in one go, of 14 x 10 feet, which no one in Pondicherry had tried before. Though this did not work the first time, as the wall bulged, Venkatesh found his way around, learning the process with guidance from experts at Pondicherry, calculating the shuttering needed and finally succeeding in creating the walls.

“Finally we found the way around; we had 11 walls and we finished one wall, one day,” he says.

The walls and the flooring, down to the cupboards within the kitchen follows the same monochromatic colour tone, echoing the earthiness of VAAZH.

“I wanted to create a single emotion within the house,” says the architect, “The air cracks on the floor and the texture of the floor are details that add to the house and makes me believe that the house is a breathing entity.”

The Curved Art Wall

River rocks placed in the courtyard are not just decorative—they evoke the nearby stream, offering a tactile connection to place.The curve also acts as a vertical playground—a climbable surface that leads to the roof, inviting children (and childlike wonder) to engage with the architecture physically. From the rooftop, clouds drift by, birds fly low, and the land stretches out in whispers. The house becomes a three-dimensional canvas of interaction, reflection, and repose.

“More than anything, VAAZH is alive. It welcomes not just people, but birds, insects, even stray animals. It is a home that breathes with the seasons—bare feet on damp floors, sun-warmed corners at dawn, rain on skin, and wind in one’s hair. It is a living, porous, generous kind of architecture. A kind of living,” says the architect.

In a time when architecture often seeks to impress, VAAZH chooses to belong, to embrace earth and to just breathe and to live a simple life.

Built on ancestral land within a vibrant, wall-less community, the home draws deeply from Tamil architectural traditions. It is not just a structure—but a statement about what it means to live meaningfully, slowly, in tune with the land.