Matharoo Associates establish their conventional wisdom by exercising extreme restraint in an honest use of material and construction for an atypical project near Ahmedabad. The clients, an aquarium shop owner, needed a place to breed fish as well as to serve as a weekend retreat on a lush contoured farmland. Using the site-geometry and the programmatic up-take as the schematic, a simple linear plan was generated by Gurjit Singh Matharoo that fulfil both objectives in an ingenious way, and still remains very much a part of the hinterland, not taking away from it. Spread over a mere 130 sq. m. of the 530 sq. m plot, the aptly christened ‘house with balls’ appears sickle-shaped at first glance. Sunk about 1m deep into the ground, the entire house is made of exposed concrete, which is in-situ, hand-mixed, hand-vibrated and hand-poured. In fact it is only the lengthy wall and its terminal curve that are visible to the eye. Every aspect of this design is set out to strip expense from the project; and the best contextual and cost-effective design decision is the incorporation of local building expertise and craftsmanship.
