Madras Spaces creates rural Indian home using "only what was necessary"

Indian studio Madras Spaces has completed The Threshold House, a farmhouse in Tamil Nadu built using a locally sourced palette of repurposed brick, timber and tiles.

Surrounded by agricultural fields in the small village of V Thuraiyur, the compact 93-square-metre home was the result of a simple client brief that prioritised local materials, daylight and natural ventilation.

Chennai-based Madras Spaces gave a third of the site's footprint over to a patio, wrapped by brick walls punctured by perforated openings and overlooked by a balcony shared by the first-floor bedrooms.

"The site was extremely tight, which became the primary challenge and design driver," principal architect Aswin Karthik told Dezeen.

"Although village houses are typically extroverted, this constraint led us to design a home that appears introverted from the outside, but gradually opens up and becomes extroverted within as one moves through the spaces," added Karthik.

"The ground floor is conceived as an open, seamless flow of spaces that change function over the course of the day. The central court becomes an extended living space, animated by light, air, and movement throughout the day."

Entering via the patio, both a wooden door and folding shutters lead into the home's main living space, the floor of which steps up to create a stage-like seating area leading through to a kitchen at the rear.

The Threshold House has a load-bearing brick structure that supports a concrete upper floor and roof, topped with traditional Mangalore tiles.

The majority of materials, including the home's doors and windows, were salvaged and repurposed.

Karthik describes this use of existing materials as a way of "reinforcing continuity" with the area's local building traditions and craftsmanship.

On the first floor, a monopitch section soars above a pair of bedrooms, which share access to both a balcony and a skylit bathroom and shower room.

The bedrooms are lined with white plaster walls, accompanied by sections of white-painted salvaged brickwork forming a headboard for the beds and exposed timber ceilings above.

"We tried to stay as close to the roots as possible in terms of sustainability and construction," explained Karthik. "This allowed us to engage deeply with local culture, ways of living, and local workmanship."

"The intent was not to create something that merely looks beautiful, but something that is truthful and sustainable — and therefore beautiful on its own. We used only what was necessary. Not more, not less," he added.

Other homes in India recently featured on Dezeen include Ananda, a dwelling in Kerela by Thought Parallels Architecture that reinterprets the southern Indian region's vernacular buildings, and Zenhouse, which Studio Nirvana designed to invite "calm and stillness".

The photography is by Syam Sreesylam.

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