Mukundan House is an urban residence designed for a family of five, a young couple with two kids and their grandparents. Cautious after the 2018 Kerala floods, this home is designed to mitigate mild flooding situations but at the same time, on normal days it would be just a very simple house without showing any hint of being built for any purpose as such.
The living space of the house, where maximum time would be spent by the family as a unit was planned to draw cool wind from west and naturally brought together all the important activities. This central open area integrated all public activities like congregation, dining, cooking, tv viewing, study, entertainment, workout.. and a large party area. An in between level was planned to connect both main levels to serve as a pause in between the movement of levels, the space below the mezzanine is used as an active rainwater collection tank.
The home is a play between material characters of built mass. Activity oriented spaces such as the gym, study, mezzanine floor etc are built as light tensile or light weight structures, rendering to the tectonic of the space. The bedrooms to the west are shielded from the harsh sun with a screen in cement boards, compressed wood and bamboo mat. This also helps to control heavy rains. Large overhang on the west controlled solar incidence. Vegetation in the neighbourhood and inside the plot filters the light and mellowed down lashing rain.
The Flat roof collects rainwater and is stored in the space below the mezzanine floor. Solar panels kept on the sloped roof above bedrooms generate about 8KW power which is fed into the power grid. This keeps the power bill almost zero every month.