This Kerala Home Reflects an Architect's Childhood Memories (House Tour).

I'm an architect, I can convince anything. But I'm a client, I can't convince anything. This house is my childhood memories. I was trying to recreate my childhood, my nostalgia, my likes, everything. It's a dream for an architect to design on home. It's a very big opportunity to design a home. And Chandroth is the name which I got from my family house itself because our family is known as Chandroth. The concept of this house was derived from my village because I was born and brought up in a small village in Kannur where we had all these elements like plants, trees, ponds, water bodies, rain, sunlight and everything. So when we moved our base from Kannur to Trissur, we wanted to create the same ambience here. So I found a property 16 kilometers away from the core town called Aryampadam. It's like blessed with nature and all. This is our property. We have the main road over here. And from here, the design starts. The main element when you enter is the Poomugam. Poomugam means the entrance gazebo. The entry should be very much welcoming. And my intention to provide a Poomugam is like it should act like a living space also. Because inside my house, it's all private spaces. If somebody is coming to the house, we can treat them, we can greet them in the seat of it. And we have another element called Nadumuttam. That is called the central courtyard. And the courtyard is surrounded with dining room, kitchen, and the living space. Because this is where we gather together and we enjoy a lot. And I have a private backyard with a private swimming pool with my own private spaces and all. And inside the bedroom, we decided not to provide a cot. Instead, we raised the floor a bit and kept two beds together so that the entire family can spend our time inside a single bedroom only. Laterite is always a nostalgic part inside me because my father used to have a laterite quarry. So I have a wall which separates the house into two. That is the central wall of the project. I wanted that wall to be laterite. So that laterite wall creates a separation from two zones like a private zone and a very private zone. The core idea of the design is when you open your main door, a direct vision is ensured throughout the site. We call it as Madhya Sutra. And the staircase is placed right in the courtyard so that through the courtyard only, the vertical and horizontal circulation is ensured. The staircase is covered with glass and we have a flat roof above that. We decided to provide a balcony in front and the rear part of the house. And this leads into the architecture lounge which was supposed to be a guest bedroom. We converted that into an architecture lounge. The brains working here need more fresh air and more connection to the nature. So there are two important things in the design. One is the staircase which leads to the open rooftop. And the second one is the sliding folding door which opens up to the courtyard. And moving forward, we have the parents' bedroom and the bathroom. And we have my brother's bedroom and the bathroom right above that. Sloping roof is necessary in a tropical climatic region like Kerala. But it's not like every house should have a sloping roof. So the areas which are directly exposed to weather conditions, I kept it sloping. Like I used terracotta tiles as a slope roof. At the same time, I used a modern material called sandwich roof as a roofing material for slope roofs. In some areas, I kept it flat because that was very much open. That doesn't have that much impact, that much connectivity towards the weather conditions. One interesting element we got during our travel was an old machine wheel. So we decided to place that wheel right above here so that it will act as a focal point. And it will give us a retro look towards the elevation. A house of our own is always a dream for us. But it happened after 10 years of marriage. Now this home is not just a place for us actually. It's a feeling to be embraced, to be cherished and to be celebrated with my parents, kids and all. And finally we are happily owning this project after lots of stories and all. Thank you.