Ramaiah House

The Ramaiah House is a large family house located in Nelamangala on the outskirts of Bangalore, 30 kilometres from the city centre. The client desired a house that facilitates a contemporary lifestyle while evoking tradition and history.

The design takes its cues from the site, building on a view axis that connects a large rock toward the northeast corner with a lake beyond the site towards the southwest. The public zone of the house – containing family room, living room and dining room – is laid out to define a central swimming-pool courtyard against the rock. The family room and living room maintain the view axis by allowing a transparency of views through the building. The house is thus anchored in the landscape along this axis, which links a tower containing a spa pavilion in the northeast corner, the rock, the swimming-pool courtyard, the house, a set of patios, the garden and the lake.

The private realm of the house lies to the north of the swimming pool, and each of the rooms here has views towards the landscape and the pool.

The material of the house evokes tradition through the use of stone walls, tiled roofs, and extensive verandahs, all expressed within an aesthetic of contemporary restraint. Every room in the house has its two long edges open to landscape, creating a building that is naturally lit and ventilated in every room, with verandahs serving to control solar heat gain.

The architectural language is one of crafted restraint, so that the house refrains from any loud symbolic statement, and its character is solely derived from sheer presence in landscape.