The Cove House is a weekend home nestled in a site swaddled by the mountains of the Western Ghats. Red Brick Studio was approached by the client who wanted to build a space that would allow him a get-away from the hustle of the city life and provide him an opportunity to soak in the picturesque views of the backwaters of the Panshet Dam the site overlooked. Faced with a limitation of a tight constructible area, he also wished to have open spaces which could be integrated with the house to be able to host a larger gathering of friends and family.
© Hemant Patil
Upon seeing the site and its surroundings, the studio?s first response was to create a built-form that would try and blend in rather than stand out. Rather than typically using the flat part for construction, the studio proposed to set the house beyond this zone and use the natural topography of the site to tuck away the majority of the house from the view at the entrance. © Hemant Patil
Much of the house is thus embedded into the ground covered by a single mono-roof with an inverted curved profile spanning across the length of the house. This roof is separated from the built mass by a continuous clear window on all sides. Placed strategically at the level at which one enters the site, the clear allows the viewer to look through the house and catch glimpses of the valley across it.
The entry to the house is discreet and is accessed through a series of steps in a courtyard build in a natural setting with vegetation ...