A house is often a portrait of the people who live in it. In many Indian families, the woman of the house spends much of her time looking after others; planning meals, watching over everyone’s health, and keeping the household steady. What she rarely has is the chance to sit with her family and share the time she helps create for them. This became clear in our first meeting, and it shaped how the functional design began to take form.
The Functional Design Of This Home Started From Its First Meeting |DOT
In many Indian households, the kitchen remains a peripheral space; functionally important yet spatially separated from the social life of the home. Here, the project began by rethinking this spatial hierarchy. Instead of being concealed at the edge of the apartment, the kitchen was relocated, whilst maintaining the ‘Vaastu’, transforming it into the social and spatial anchor of the house, enabling cooking, conversation, and everyday family life to occur simultaneously.
The organization of the apartment is structured around a rotated square inscribed within a larger square. This geometric shift establishes a subtle reorientation of movement and directs the house towards the kitchen; the rooms open out such that they are visually and socially linked with each other. As one moves through the house, the geometry shifts the perspective, spaces overlap, functional design and the sense of direction changes.
The choice of material for the shell is bare and natural; cementitious walls and ceiling bring in the structural presence, teak doors and windows add warmth, while the polished Kota stone flooring becomes a continuous ground plane, all coming together like a canvas for the interiors where artworks, furniture, and rugs bring in the color and texture, softening the weight of architecture.
Rather than presenting itself as a single formal gesture, the house reveals itself gradually through everyday inhabitation; its spaces changing character through the day while quietly drawing the family together around the most ordinary, yet essential, rituals of living.
Fact File
Designed by: DOT
Project Type: Apartment Interiors design
Project Name: Kaleidoscopic House
Location: Surat
Year Built: 2025
Built-up Area: 3400 sqft
Principal Architects: Krishna Mistry & Anand Jariwala
Team Design Credits: Dipal Patel
Photograph Courtesy: Ishita Sitwala | The Fishy Project
Manufacturers: Artemide, Cassina ixc., Living Divani, SOTA
Project Management: Core Projects
General Contractor: Makkhanlalji
Engineering & Consulting > Mep: DOT
Source: Archdaily
Firm’s Instagram Link: DOT
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