Indian architecture studio Iki Builds has completed Soil and Soul Studio. It is a home in Hyderabad crafted with a palette of natural, local materials and construction rubble. “The architects located the 130-square-metre home between two large yards. It is placed among a series of farmhouses and trees in Chevella, and designed it as a quiet retreat for a client who works from home.”
Local Materials And Sustainable Building Techniques Craft This Rural Indian Home | Iki Builds
Iki Builds has created a house in rural India. Drawing on these surroundings and the simple yet functional farm buildings, Iki Builds prioritized using recycled and natural materials for the project, and creating a connection to the outdoors. “The studio intends this as a comment on modern construction and demonstrates the potential of waste in architecture.”
It is located among trees on farmland in Hyderabad, our guiding philosophy was to forge an architecture that listens to the land, said principal architect Vamshidhar Reddy. This meant minimizing our environmental footprint by radically rethinking conventional construction. The design embraces a fusion of time-honoured vernacular wisdom and contemporary sustainable innovation, he told Dezeen. It represents a quiet rebellion against the disposable nature of modern construction. It stands as a testament to the fact that waste is simply a resource we haven’t found a creative use for yet.
The builders partly used local and recycled materials to construct it. They built the walls of the home using a mix of rubble from nearby demolished buildings, soil excavated from the site, and a minimal amount of cement. They then covered the walls with a layer of earth-coloured render.
A combination of traditional Madras terrace roofs – made using timber joists, brick, and lime topped with patterned tiles – and more modern vaulted concrete shells crowns the home above. The designers left these roof structures, as well as the wall render, exposed on the home’s interior, which brings what the studio describes as a textural richness and earthy coolness.
The studio said the design critiques “the disposable nature of modern construction” The walls tell a story of transformation, of turning rubble that would have ended up in a landfill into a beautiful, functional, and thermally efficient part of a home, Reddy said.
Philosophically, it embodies circularity. Aesthetically, it gives the studio its unique textural richness and monolithic, earthy character. Functionally, its thermal mass is the primary reason for the building’s exceptional natural comfort, he added.
An earth-coloured render cloaks the walls. A large, 30-year-old neem tree beside the entrance informed the layout of the home. The studio described this tree as a sacred anchor for the entire structure. A wall wraps around the tree, which sits at the centre of a courtyard at the front of the home. A paved seating area surrounds it, and the kitchen and living room overlook this space.
The slightly higher volume of the living space extends into a mezzanine sleeping area, accessed via a black steel stair, where an additional window looks out at the courtyard and tree. The shallow plan of the home maximises its connection to both this front courtyard and the backyard, which is sheltered beneath a canopy formed of wooden poles previously used as scaffolding during construction.
Fact FileDesigned by: Iki Builds
Project Type: Residential Architecture Design
Project Name: Rural Indian home
Location: Hyderabad
Principal Architects: Vamshi Sama & Mounica Reddy
Photograph Courtesy: Vivek Eadara
Firm’s Instagram Link: Iki Builds
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