House of Voids
+ Residential
+ 8000 sq.ft.
+ Andhra Pradesh, India
The House of Voids is a 8000 sq.ft. home planned for a family of 7 across 3 generations in the old town of Vijaywada, Andhra Pradesh. The site of the house is landlocked by buildings on 3 sides with no setbacks. This crowded urban context coupled with stringent Vaastu regulations, created a challenge in bringing natural light within the deep plan of the house. In order to respond to this planning challenge, The House of Voids is designed as a series of private spaces juxtaposed with centrally inserted 'voids' that would serve as shaded, shared spaces between these solids both horizontally and vertically.
Located in a dense urban fabric, House of Voids comprises a series of private spaces(solids) surrounding centrally inserted ‘voids’ that would serve as shared spaces between these solids both horizontally and vertically.
The ‘voids’ look upon each other and look into each other while constantly being shaded by the structure itself due to their specific location within the form. The chamfered granite facade further emphasizes this interplay of solid and void.
The building is cladded using a dry cladding system specially designed with a custom fabricated bracketing allowing it to project 600 mm out of the rigid building line per-specified by Vaastu Shashtra.
The building has no compound wall and interfaces with the front street through a narrow opening on the ground floor. The dry-clad form of the structure further helped negotiate this challenging interface with the facade and was made to bend inwards creating room for movement along this ‘public’ edge.
Photography by Vivek Eadara