House Of The Month Crafted Luxury

An urban residence in Bengaluru that is part mansion and part refuge in nature, designed by Ar. Alok Shetty of Bhumiputra Architecture.

- Varuni Mohan

‘Maviname’ literally means Mango House and this home has two ancient mango trees that interlace through the outer structure.

The perfect harmony of space, form and line is the best way to describe ‘Maviname’ or the house around mango trees. This 19,000 square feet home, designed by Alok Shetty of Bhumiputra Architecture, is nestled in a quiet cul de sac of a posh Bengaluru neighbourhood and goes around two ancient and imposing mango trees. Conceived around the concept of “showcasing nature in full HD”, the design of this residence, built for his brother Vybhav Shetty, his wife Karina and their two young daughters is a study in clever use of scale, maximising natural light and material craftsmanship.

The design brief was flexible and trusted over to Alok’s intimate knowledge of his brother’s tastes and the family’s lifestyle. The lady of the house is Mexican American and so an architecture style of Tropical Modernism was referenced and adapted—a perfect genre of aesthetic that appealed to both the Indian and Latin sensibilities of the homeowners. In this style, modernism architecture is subverted to suit the tropical climate and focuses on issues of ventilation, integration of nature and climate. One of the main considerations in creating the structural design was the natural geography of the plot, which featured hard rock on one side and soil on the other. Alok Shetty explains, “We domesticated the bedrock on one side of the land, by planning the more private quarters of the house over it.