Behind a carefully composed geometric brick façade, a New Delhi residence rises high

This duplex New Delhi residence by Amit Khanna of AKDA rises up above the Indian capital's busy streets, dominated by its façade of slender brick-clad columns and arches. These curve back to form a distinctive combination of vault and buttress that gives the building its name, the Pendentive House.

Walk through a uniquely sculpted New Delhi residence

In architectural geometry, a pendentive is described as a ‘curved triangle of vaulting formed by the intersection of a dome with its supporting arches’. It’s a piece of transitional geometry that Khanna describes as being a ‘notoriously difficult object to draw and to build… Spherical in three dimensions, it is the intersection of two arches and a dome, creating a triangular surface that curves along all three edges.’

Nine of these forms make up the façade, arranged in a square grid that gives the building a unique character, placing an emphasis on the vertical without losing the quality of craft and form that the arches create. The arches are shaped from hand-cut thin bricks supported by a steel formwork and create a deep-set façade that helps the building’s solar performance in the New Delhi heat, thanks to the provision of both shade and cross ventilation.

The building is a single private residence divided into two stacked duplexes. On the ground floor there is parking, with recreational spaces in the basement and a top floor roof terrace with a pergola. Each duplex follows a similar arrangement, with the living spaces on the lower floors (second and fourth) and more open plan private spaces on the upper (third and fifth).

Despite the relatively tight 60 x 27 ft site, the amount of accommodation has been achieved by building up, predicting future development in a city that is becoming increasingly dense. Upper floors have views of the 13th-century Qutub Minar tower, with a park to the rear and a mature mango tree helping shade the front façade.

The lower duplex features three large ensuite bedrooms on its second level, as well as an internal staircase that rises up to the open plan living space on its third floor. There are clear views from the pendentive arches and balcony at the front to a terrace adjoining the dining area at the rear of the building, with space also provided for a modest guest room. In the upper duplex, a skylit staircase connects the levels to bring natural light into the lower level.

Amit Khanna has created an archetype to address the future of outdated, low-level construction in a city of rapidly rising land values. ‘This project looks to a future of standard height, shaded façades that share a roofline [which] is raised to match future development, while strong, horizontal lines are emphasised on the floor levels,’ he says.

Before construction, the studio built several prototypes to master the intricate forms of the pendentive. As a result, the level of detail design on the façade is both forward-thinking and a nod to India’s rich traditions of architectural craft and geometric design.

AKDA.in