Aurelia – House Under a Pool | SHROFFLEoN
Text description provided by the architects. Alibagh often referred to as the Hamptons of Mumbai, is the location of choice for the Second Homes of Mumbai’s many. It is here, in the hilly village of Katalpada set amidst an exceptionally beautiful context of rolling undulated landscape, boasting of instagrammable views and surrounded by several picturesque hills, earmarked to be forest lands, does Aurelia find itself situated.
The city-based clients wished for their weekend home to offer an experience that is a near impossibility in an urban context such as Mumbai – luxurious larger than life outdoor living, and a feeling of being one with nature. Programmatically, the brief given was clear – an annex to their existing structure in the form of a standalone two bedrooms home, having a spectacular pool – a pool that utilizes the landscape as the primary design element, overshadowing the program of the old and the new and becoming the glue that ties together the home.
Being perched on the top of a hill, our design takes advantage of the existing sloped terrain, by orienting the aquamarine infinity pool in the direction of the landscape and the views beyond. Space then created under the pool houses an independent two bedrooms home – a glass house, that by its sheer siting, blurs spaces within into the landscape beyond. The pool being infinity on all sides overspills into a smaller waterbody under, which then forms a cascading waterfall, becoming the backdrop to the primary seating in the living room of the glass house.
Perpendicular to the feature white infinity pool, the home has a black 8” deep lounging water body, that allows for unrestricted views and overspills with a gurgling ambient sound, over a textured treated random rubble stone wall into a larger black water body under, with a white Vetro clad Jacuzzi positioned between the two. These waterbodies have embedded within them 1500 fiber optic lights, that change in color, enhancing the atmosphere of luxury post-sundown.
The two bedrooms overlook on opposite sides, with the forest suite turning its back on the property, enjoying an outdoor patio with views of the hills across, and the master suite opening up on both ends, with a view to the forest, as well as the dressed random rubble waterfall.
The open space around the infinity pool, the main entertainment area of the home has two free-flowing organic grass pods forming informal gathering spaces and houses an eco-mesh barbeque pavilion – a structure to be overtaken by nature in time, to form a folly of flowers. The landscape within the proposal plays a vital role in the making of place, as that is there that the client will spend most of their time being enveloped within nature.
Project Team: Dhaval Jain, Kayzad Shroff, Maria Isabel Leon, Pratibha Singh, Sidharth Shah, Ronnie Balsara, Rumy Shroff, Tanushree Agarwal
Area: 185.0 m2
Project Year: 2016
Photographs: Photographix
Manufacturers: Vondon, Rajiv Hinduja, Techlam, NATUZZI
Consultants: Girish Wadhwa – Structural / Shirish Patki – Specifications / Niren Pimenta – Pool
Available in: www.archdaily.com/880370. Accessed in: 02/08/2018.
