Location: Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
Client(s): Dr. Urmish Chudgar
Design year(s): 2007-2008
Construction year(s): 2009-2010
PROJECT TEAM: Gurjit Singh Matharoo- Principal architect, Prof. M.C. Gajjar, Architectural Advisor, Dilip Revar – Architect, Nauka Baxi – Trainee
CONSULTANTS:
Structural engineer(s): Matharoo Engineers, Mr. Rajendra Singh Matharoo, Hitesh Rathi
Water supply and drainage engineer(s): Jhaveri Associates, Ahmedabad
Interior designer(s): Matharoo Associates
Electrical Consultants: Jhaveri Associates, Ahmedabad
Landscape architect(s): Vagish Naganur, Bangalore
Site supervision: Matharoo Associates; Dilip Revar
CONTRACTORS:
General contractor: RJP Infrastructure Pvt Ltd
Landscape contractor: Four Ficus Landscape Company
OTHERS:
Program: Living, Dining, Bed, Bath, Storage
Structural system: Concrete slab, hand fabricated steel framework
Major materials: Reinforced Cement Concrete, Steel,Glass, Kuddapah Stone,
Site area: 10,000 sq.m
Building area: 350 sq.m
Total floor area: 200 sq m

All About the Architect

Gurjit Singh Matharoo is the principal at Matharoo Associates, a studio that began operations in Ahmedabad, India in 1992.The firm since its inception has been involved in a diverse range of projects that have brought them international as well as domestic recognition, they are the recipients of a variety of distinguished awards such as:

Conferred International Fellow RIBA 2012, only Indian Architect besides B.V.Doshi and Charles Correa.
2011-Chosen one of seven trend breaking architects from around the world by ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Chicago Athenaeum Architecture Awards 2011- Winner, for Net House, Ahmedabad,
The AR House award 2010- Winner, for House with balls, Ahmedabad,
The AR Emerging Architecture Award 2009-Winner, for Curtain door, Shantam Residence, Surat
The Aga Khan Awards 2009- Nomination, for Ashok Patel Residence, Ahmedabad
The WAN House of the year award 2006 -Runners up, for Ashok Patel Residence, Ahmedabad.
The AR Emerging Architecture Award 2005- Honorable mention, for Prathama Blood Centre, Ahmedabad
The AR Emerging Architecture Award 2003 – Editors choice, for Ashwinikumar Crematorium, Surat
K Cement ‘Young Architect of the Year’ 2002-Winner
K Cement ‘Young Architect of the Year’ 2001-Winner

The firm’s standards are adhered to by an in house team of dedicated personnel in the field of Architecture, Interior design and Product design, leading to a holistic design approach coupled with innovation and acute attention to functionality and detail.

Gurjit Singh Matharoo besides his professional practice is also actively involved in academic work and has been a visiting faculty since 1991 and was the Chair of Architectural Design from 2016-2019 at the Centre of Environmental Planning and Technology in Ahmedabad, from where he graduated. He is deeply passionate about the mechanics and design of automobiles.

At the entrance, there is a lily pond that creates a harmonious relationship between nature and man-made structures.

A more detailed image of the Mild Steel trellis used in the doors.

Multifunctional cabinet - with its top as the only lighting element, the compact 2m high cabinet, holds the TV, kitchen, dining, and household items. — Multifunctional cabinet – with its top as the only lighting element, the compact 2m high cabinet, holds the TV, kitchen, dining, and household items.

Floating glass stairs wrap around the rainwater down takepipe that transfers water from the roof to the 1 million liter rainwater storage tank underground.

There is an outdoor shower next to the landscaped area.

View of the net house through the surrounding foliage.

net, nett ,net,adj. clear of all else, subject to no further deductions. (chamiers twentieth century dictionary)

The relentlessly varying weather of the city of Ahmedabad exemplifies the typical tropical climate of extremes: short winters, wet humid monsoons and long dry scorching summers. Though less prevalent today, in our childhood we slept outdoors when the cool night breezes came as a reliever.

We would tuck ourselves under a machardani, a simple net held up by four intersecting bamboo poles, locked between the legs of our charpouy cot. This would become our private domain, a safe haven protecting from insects, harsh light and parents’ eyes.

When the design brief for a weekend house in the fringes of the city asked for a place that is open to the wilderness of nature yet offers all creature comforts, it brought back memories of the net and the shelter it offered.

The house was visualized as a clearing amidst the forest. A 12mx12m column less space is sheltered by a single monolithic 90 ton concrete slab suspended by an elaborate steel framework which becomes thin mullions to a skin of net shutters. This steel trellis makes the transparent volume below evident by stark contrast, reverberating the image of the virtual jungle of hoardings, telecom towers, satellite dishes and temporary structures that now make up the Indian city skyline.

The undercroft is enveloped in gossamer layers of sliding mosquito nets, roll up blinds and folding glass panels that center around an all-encompassing cabinet, the pulsating heart of the house.

All these layers provide desired degrees of privacy, shelter and exposure to nature, enabling the space to be modulated at will to suit the weather and psyche, from completely accessible and open to the outside, to fully closed and dark inside.

The two meter high cabinet works as a divider between the living space and the bathing areas. It unfurls to become a dining table with chairs inside and opens out into a kitchen replete with microwave, refrigerator, cooking appliances and cutlery, unfolding further to reveal an air conditioning unit, music system, television and speakers, storage for clothes and accessories.

Custom designed and locally made, the top of the cabinet also becomes a lamp illuminating the concrete slab at night. The light thus reflected attracts no insects.

The shielded bathing area contains two private washrooms, whose plumbing, drainage and storage are also accommodated inside the very cabinet. The washrooms then open out into a secluded private area, netted again and including a Jacuzzi, steam bath, sun deck and a vast lilly pond thus making the 2mx7m washroom seem infinite.

The bathing pool demands its own significance and occupies as dominant a volume as the living areas: The duality of the veiled transitional space and the water body set against the encircling stone wall makes it intimate.

As the concrete slab hangs detached from the ground, a 150mm steel pipe becomes the only element mediating between the ground and the roof. Water collected from the roof flows down this pipe and spring back up at its vertical to form a fountain before accumulating in a 1.4 million liter underground tank, harvesting rain water during monsoons.

Glass treads and a hand rail intertwine with this fountain to make a light stair, creating the notional experience of walking up a column of water. The upper floor accommodates a netted space for yoga, sunbathing, a walkway on the periphery and a gazebo to look out onto the landscape.

The site is a series of interweaving mounds and valleys set against a back drop of trees to make an environment that is an escape from city life. Away from the net house, an outdoor shower has been created in rough concrete as if it had been violently gorged out of the soft green mound.

The Net House, the sum total of all the essential components of living yet bare and compact, attempts to act as a catalyst, not getting consumed but enhancing the man[1]nature relationship, both within and without, just like the net panes counterbalanced by cylindrical weights suspended from pulleys above.