HOUSE WITH VERANDAHS

House with Verandahs plays with the tension between mass and porosity, form and void, light and shade, to move tropical architecture beyond the usual tropes. The key architectural gesture - a shaded loggia - forges a relationship between indoors and outdoors and visually transitions the building into the landscape. Project Description The house is situated on a large rectangular plot on Dalvey Road. The development was an opportunity to restore a large expanse of open space and greenery on the site. By tucking the building into the sloping terrain, two distinct gardens are defined at the front and rear. The building’s engagement with these two gardens on the 1st storey and basement characterizes two key frontages that represent our latest reinterpretation of the tropical villa. Seen from the front, a horizontal volume that is closed and compact (containing the bedrooms) is elevated above the ground. Underneath it, an open but ordered plan allows for cross-ventilation and visual sightlines that extend from the front to the rear of the house, creating a sense of continuity from one outdoor space to another. A perimeter canopy creates deep shaded verandahs to transition the indoors to the outdoors. The rear of the building features a wide basement portal that visually transitions the building into the landscape. When viewed through the generous foreground, it becomes a plinth on which the stacked volumes of the upper floors rest. Yet it subverts the classical form of a plinth as it frames a void space. The portal is cladded in dark chengal and angled to attenuate the tropical climate, creating a comfortable buffer between indoors and outdoors. The loggia, with its harmonious yet dynamic proportions, is an iteration of the tropical verandah writ large. Skylights bring daylight into key areas of the house. Indoor-outdoor hybrid spaces are carved out in the upper floors. A restrained material palette that includes concrete, granite, stainless-steel, aluminum is carried from the exterior to the interior. House with Verandahs plays with the tension between mass and porosity, form and void, light and shade, to expand the lexicon of tropical architecture beyond the usual tropes.