Iki Builds uses local stone and earth for "cascading" vaulted home in India
A geological palette of rammed earth, local stone and terracotta tiles reflects the rugged, rocky character of the nearby Deccan Plateau at this home in South India, designed by local architecture studio Iki Builds.
Named Aurva Illam – a combination of the Sanskrit word Aurva, meaning 'of the earth' and the Tamil word Illam, meaning 'home' – the dwelling is located on the outskirts of Hyderabad.
According to the principal architect at Iki Builds, Vamshidhar Reddy, the home was an attempt to "rethink modern luxury", rejecting what he described as the "imported glass-and-marble" style typical of villas in the area for something that reflected the landscape.
"We wanted the architecture to act as a physical extension of the Deccan Plateau – a home truly born from the 'memory of the land'," Reddy told Dezeen.
"To honour the ancient, rugged rock formations of the plateau, we had to build with its actual bones, expressing the local stone in entirely different architectural forms," he added.
Rather than adopt the more "defensive", walled character of villas in the area, Aurva Illam was designed as a stepped series of vaulted forms described by Sama as a "cascading landscape", with private study and bedroom spaces atop more communal areas.
Framing these vaulted spaces are thick walls constructed from rammed earth, which was created using a combination of soil excavated from the site and local quarry waste.
This rammed earth was left exposed to create raw, striated walls at the ground-floor level, while the upper exterior and large areas of the interior are coated in a terracotta-toned earth plaster that complements areas of red brickwork and tiled vaults.
The open ground floor is organised around a central courtyard based on a traditional mutram, with a high, vaulted living, kitchen and dining area to the south positioned off an entrance foyer and illuminated by clerestory windows.
Leading up to the first floor is a skylit cantilevered stone staircase made from rough-cut salvaged granite boulders, the upper treads of which were polished and the undersides left raw.
"You start at a grounded, intimately scaled entrance flanked by rammed earth, which then releases into the double-height social concourse of the living hall – a space we conceived as a cathedral of clay," Reddy said.
"The journey continues up through the eastern wing, where stacked twin studies form a vertical library, before culminating at the master suite at the summit, which captures the best cross-breezes and overlooks the park."
"[The staircase] is our ultimate, sculptural homage to the Deccan plateau. It turns the simple act of walking upstairs into an ascent through the raw geological strata of Hyderabad itself," he added.
The cascading form of the home was also used to create a stack ventilation effect, as well as a means of rainwater collection via large ferrocement gutters.
Iki Builds previously used a similar palette of local earth and rubble for another home in Hyderabad, Soil and Soul Studio. Rammed earth was also used for A House Born of Four Soils, an Indian home by Hiren Patel Architects + Design.
The photography is by Vivek Eadara.
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