The Courtyard House reimagines the traditional Indian home as a contemporary sequence of indoor and outdoor rooms organised around a central void.
The site — a corner plot in a growing Pune suburb — presented both an opportunity and a constraint. The brief called for a home that offered privacy from neighbouring buildings while remaining open and connected to the sky, the breeze, and the garden. Our response was to invert the typical organisation: rather than placing the garden at the periphery, we brought it to the centre, making the courtyard the organising principle of the plan.
Every major living space opens onto the courtyard through full-height glazed doors. The relationship is deliberately ambiguous — is the courtyard an outdoor room, or are the rooms extensions of the courtyard? This ambiguity is the essence of the design.
Material Palette
Kota Stone
Teak Wood
Lime Plaster
Basalt
Oxidised Copper
Gallery
Design Approach
The plan is organised as a series of pavilions around the courtyard, connected by a covered verandah that mediates between inside and outside. The material palette draws from the Deccan plateau — locally quarried basalt, Kota stone, and lime plaster — creating a home that feels as though it has risen from its site.
The courtyard is planted with a single mature neem tree, around which the daily life of the home revolves. Bedrooms on the upper floor look into the courtyard through deep-set windows that also frame views of the surrounding treetops.