MOAD Creates Meditative Spaces in the V House

Mahesh Radhakrishnan, the principal architect of MOAD – The Madras Office for Architects and Designers, is known for dramatisation of spaces to fit the context it is placed in. Here in this V House, a home for contemplation and delight for a businessman and family, it is the experiences of spaces and the perceptiveness of visuals that has been focused on.

The V House is a home built for contemplation and delight, it is conceived to heighten the consciousness of living through light and materials. A house that definitely has the MOAD touch in its design delivery through the play of light and shadow and experiences while moving from one space to another. And the contemporary V House is so named as it follows all Vastu principles in its planning.

“The V house is located in a plotted development along the coast of Chennai, built as a post-retirement home for a businessman and his family. The design of the house is a response to the hectic and connected lifestyle that we experience today,” says Mahesh Radhakrishnan, the principal architect of MOAD.

“To bring the focus on the richness of life and to counter the highly networked lifestyle, the project deliberately dis-joints the functional spaces of a home. Everyday activities of living, dining, kitchen, study, bedroom all become autonomous spaces, while the spatiality of the project is defined by the spaces that connect them,” he says.

V house is organised as two distinctly varied experiences at lower and upper levels. At the ground level, it’s the relationship with the ground (earth) and darkness while at the upper level it is about light and openness. The images of the ground floor show connecting spaces and mysterious nooks and corners that add to the drama that is visualised by the architect. The rough granite flooring and dark wood add to the sense of darkness and visual character.

“Designed as a series of loosely connected pavilions, The ground level being largest, opens out minimally allowing for nature to cave in, giving a sense of living in darkness. The floors above are an organisation of pavilions of different heights, resulting in an enclosure that forms a private garden for the upper level. The landscape acts as a connecter across the home. These pavilions are landscaped at different levels with hanging gardens engulfing the home,” says the architect.

Each space is created in isolation, and yet there is an underlying theme that connects the various facets within the home.

Rough granite stone floor, reclaimed teak wood doors, windows, and brass fixtures allow for architecture to age in time along with the people living in them.

Mahesh, who strongly believes that the fundamental principle of architecture is to celebrate life and that designs are for those who live in it, loves the ground floor of this house, for reasons that are almost apparent.

“The skylight anchors this space and it’s very Indian in its darkness. The space is almost meditative even though you are in the heart of the house,” he says.

But the clients love the first-floor central space overlooking the terrace garden, a place that nurtures and grows.

 

DETAILS OF PROJECT

Project Name: V House

Completion Year: 2020

Gross Built Area (m2/ ft2): 1100 m2 / 11840  sq ft

Project Location: ECR Chennai

Programme: Residence

Lead Architects: MOAD – The Madras Office for Architects and Designers

Architects Team: Mahesh Radhakrishnan, Anuja Priyanka, Jaya Sriram, Ksheeraja Padmanabhan, Hari Varadhan Sampath, Hari Krishnan, Shveta Mohan, Neeti Sivakumar, Nicolas Chatelan, Udhaya Vauhini, Sarat Chandran, Shruthi Raghunath, Nawin Saravanan

Site supervision: Balaji

Construction Manager: Ananthanarayanan Consultants

Structure: Manjunath B.L – Manjunath Consultants

MEP: Balu Associates

Electrical:        Easwari & Co

Landscape: Paul Blanch flower, Auroville Botanical Gardens

Lighting: Anusha Muthu Subramaniam – Lighting Spaces

Electrical Contractor: Philson Electric Company

Interior Contactor: Rahul Associates

Lighting: Gojis

Photo Credits: Nivedita Gupta

All Images and Descriptions Courtesy MOAD