This metal screen-clad, multigenerational family home in Bengaluru, Karnataka, offers airy, functional and contemporary accomodation for an illustrator, their family unit and parents. JP House comprises two interconnected apartments; the uppermost hosts the client's unit, while the lower space is reserved for the grandparents. Designed by locally based architecture studio Kumar La Noce, the new-build house balances family warmth and a clean, almost industrial aesthetic infused with a minimalist architecture feel inside.
Kumar La Noce, headed by Bhavana Kumar and Nicola La Noce, crafted a three-storey building to best cater to the extended family’s needs. The modern structure is unified by a light blue perforated ‘veil’ on the street side – a delicate and playful metal screen. Yet this element is not simply an aesthetic gesture. Its permeable nature helps regulate the heat, air and sunlight that flows into the interior, ensuring comfortable conditions for the residents.
Stepping indoors, a clean interior exudes confidence, in an overall hardwearing, utilitarian atmosphere. The material palette is composed of white walls, polished cement and a handful of carefully chosen, bespoke wooden details. A green painted master staircase matches the external skin tone and provides a pop of colour, alongside strategic, bright furniture pieces.
Inside and outside merge behind the metal façade through open-air yet protected balconies that run along the front, which also allow for close appreciation of this key architectural feature. ‘The perforated metal façade is envisioned as a “filigree”; it incorporates simple but sophisticated detailing to retain lightness, while using readily available metal sections,’ the architects explain. ‘The custom screen system was realised through a close collaboration with a fabricator, who has a passion for detail in metal working. An exercise in balancing performance with minimal, essential and rugged detailing, craft plays a role here as much as engineering.’
Balancing Bengaluru’s hot climate, neighbours’ views and a tight urban site, JP House’s design is simple, yet effective, offering spatial luxury through smart architecture and relatively inexpensive materials.
INFORMATION
kumarlanoce.com (opens in new tab)
-
S94 Design makes the most of its uptown location to blur the lines of art and designS94 Design brings displays from Kwangho Lee, Donald Judd, Max Lamb and more to its Rafael Viñoly-designed location
-
Oasi Cashmere is taking Zegna back to its roots in the Italian Alps
Oasi Cashmere – an environmentally-conscious, all-embracing cashmere collection – is inspired by the Oasi Zegna nature park in the lush Biella Alps
-
Lynda Benglis’ seductive hall of mirrors and juicy neon eggs in London
American artist Lynda Benglis subverts expectations with new bronze sculptures and otherworldly coloured eggs in a new solo show at Thomas Dane Gallery, London
-
This Ahmedabad house blends geometric concrete and verdant trees
This concrete Ahmedabad house, Trees Sliced Through by Matharoo Associates, is designed around its site's existing trees
-
Museum of Art and Photography in Bangalore aims to democratise art and culture
MAP, the Museum of Art and Photography in Bangalore by Mathew & Ghosh Architects, shines a new light on Indian art and culture
-
Multigenerational homes for family get-togethers
Multigenerational homes make the perfect setting for extended families to come together – in daily life and for special occasions, such as the recent Lunar New Year
-
Anupama Kundoo on Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi’s legacy
Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi's recent passing shook the global architecture community; here, leading Indian architect Anupama Kundoo looks back at his legacy
-
Mumbai apartment by Rajiv Saini is the perfect Malabar Hill bolthole
A Mumbai apartment designed by Rajiv Saini blends indoors and outdoors at the top of a Malabar Hill block
-
In memoriam: Balkrishna V Doshi (1927 – 2023)
Balkrishna V Doshi, one of India’s preeminent architects and the world’s greatest modernists, has died at the age of 95. To honour his memory, we revisit a story from the Wallpaper* archives
-
A Kolkata home’s cavernous interior is dominated by curves
Cavernous is a Kolkata home by Nitin Barchha and Pooja Bihani designed around its curves
-
A minimalist Bengaluru home behind a red terracotta screen
House on 46 by Kumar La Noce is a multigenerational Bengaluru home tucked away behind a terracotta screen
