TEST

By Savitha Hira

Photography: Vibhor Yadav; courtesy Renesa Architects Studio

Read Time: 2 mins

Renesa Architects Studio designs a sprawling farmhouse to evolve a holistic vision that interprets the landscape as a complex artefact...

Vintage design is so rich and timeless that people keep referencing different epochs, borrowing nuances and stylistic elements to augur the same ageless charm. Renesa Architects Studio also does this as a bespoke exercise in their design of a New Delhi farmhouse – an approx. 17000 sq. ft. spread on a 3-acre plot!

 

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The layout follows an open, clean, straight-line spaces ideology that is jointly endorsed by both, the architect and the client, to keep the home simple and chic. Following the Palladian style - massing of the built form, the employ of a portico and the ground plus one structure with balconies all around confer the façade with as much significance as the interiors.

 

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The rotund driveway, trellised loggia from the portico to the entrance and beyond creates intimacy right from the time the gates open. The lush gardens, patio and landscaping are treated as fundamental to the built form and the aesthetic link between the edifice and the environs is maintained from all vantage points of the interior; akin to Tuscan villa gardens with some elements of ‘Federation architecture’ – a term coined in the late 1960's. A small golf course and a jogging track are incorporated here, brining one back into the present day. 

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A club house and servants' quarters are two individual edifices positioned in conjunction with the main house. 

 

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The L-shaped interior layout with the voluminous swimming pool as the focal loci has the public spaces relegated to the ground floor and the private quarters on the first floor - spaces anointed in the same colonial fusion of styles. 

 

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Wrought iron railings detail the Indianesque touch as do corner brackets and the floral trellis, which is also used as camouflage for the vertical services to sanctify the aesthetic quotient without any compromises.

 

Details

So what first appears like a classic villa with its crossed-gable roofs is at close quarters, a diligently put together home with the warmth of archetypal nuances that are referenced from different periods, merged with contemporaneous elements, resulting in an eclectic home that is in constant dialogue with its beatific environs. 

“At the same time, emphasis is given to motion and contemplation,” informs principal architect Sanchit Arora. “The built-mass is expressed through its form and its material in contrast to the dynamic consistency of nature and its continuous state of flux.” And in this, the design studio diligently goes beyond the stereotype vision of the architect, drawing equally from disciplines of photography and art.