Malhaar Residence
MALHAAR RESIDENCE
Vaissnavi Shukl
ARCHITECTS
Vaissnavi Shukl
DESIGN TEAM
Omkar Gund
PHOTOGRAPHS
Harsheen Mengar
AREA
3650 ft²
YEAR
2026
LOCATION
Ahmedabad, India
CATEGORY
Houses
English description provided by the architects.
Located on the quiet outskirts of Ahmedabad, Malhaar gathers itself inward, forming a single-storey world organized around a central court — a space that is less a void and more a living core.
Here, the architecture does not simply enclose; it orbits. Daily life unfolds in slow circulation along the edges of this open centre, where movement, light, and air are constantly in dialogue.
The courtyard becomes the house's point of stillness and transformation. It draws the sky down into the plan, holding light at its centre while allowing it to spill outward into every adjoining space.
Rooms do not stand apart as discrete enclosures but remain tethered to this shared openness; visually, atmospherically, and spatially.
Living and dining areas stretch toward shaded verandas, dissolving their boundaries into a layered sequence of interior, threshold, and landscape.
Above, the retractable roof introduces a quiet act of change. The courtyard is no longer fixed in its condition but shifts with time, weather, and occupation.
When open, it exposes the house to the immediacy of the sky; light intensifies, wind moves freely, and the court breathes as an outdoor room.
When drawn closed, a translucent plane softens this exposure, diffusing light into a gentle glow while tempering heat and rain.
This operable layer does not interrupt the space; it recalibrates it; turning the courtyard into an instrument that negotiates between climate and comfort.
Held low to the ground, the house resists monumentality. Its horizontality is deliberate, almost quiet, allowing the changing relationship between roof and sky to take precedence.
What emerges is not a static composition, but a measured field of transitions; where permanence is gently unsettled by moments of openness, and where the act of dwelling is shaped as much by change as by form.
