In New Delhi, a home designed to embrace light and landscape

This New Delhi house by local firm Architecture Discipline makes the most of a one-acre site by arranging the accommodation around the edges of a generous lawn to create a sense of space and retreat. Described by the design team as a challenge to conventional urban living, the generous size of the plot enables the two separate structures to receive ample space, light and air.

Explore this expansive New Delhi house

The accommodation consists of a main house, an outhouse and a staff block. The principal structures are set at right angles to one another, each overlooking the large lawn. Entrance to the site is at the pivot point between the two. The Farmhouse serves as the family house, a three-storey structure culminating in an expansive roof terrace with outdoor dining and servery.

The ground floor of the main residence is glazed, with one end set back beneath a wraparound screen of slender timber slats. This screen encloses a glass box which in turn houses the double-height formal living room, adjacent to a large formal dining room. A large rooflight gives this space a lantern-like feel. The garden façade, which is north facing, serves as a connecting corridor, linking the formal rooms to the guest accommodation at the west end, adjoining a meditation space and informal living room.

The service core of kitchen, pantry and utility space is tucked away behind this long axis, which also contains the stair leading up to the first-floor accommodation. The primary bedroom suite is also set at the west end of the house, with an angular balcony that looks back over the lawns to the swimming pavilion. Two other en-suite bedrooms are also located here, each with dressing rooms and study areas, while screened balconies and cantilevers provide oblique views up and down the façade.

The external screens are made of glulam timber and can be removed in their entirety in winter months to maximise the house’s connection to the outdoors. In addition to the detachable screens, the rest of the Lighthouse was formed from many prefabricated elements, including concrete beams and slabs that made construction akin to assembling a giant Meccano kit, according to the architects.

The outhouse is set on the eastern flank of the site, aligned north-south. Containing a large family room that reaches up into the timber-clad pitched roof, as well as service spaces, the room faces onto the pool, with its offset Jacuzzi and concrete frame.

‘The outhouse was originally designed as a buffer between the parking area and the central court and as an antechamber to the pool,’ say the architects, ‘but it quickly evolved into something far more layered. Now it is a setting for intimate gatherings, a casual lounge, a bar, and, above all, a space that allows the family to experience the house in a different rhythm.’

The design team, Akshat Bhatt, Chandni Saxena, Janhavi Singh, and Nipun Garg, have created a generous but private family retreat that retains a strong sense of enclosure and privacy without losing the three elements – light, air and landscape – that underpin its design. ‘By crafting the design around these elements, the home redefines urban living by immersing itself in its setting,’ the studio writes.