Basalt Beauty

The Western Ghats offer remarkable site options where one could build a comfortable home topped with stunning views. The terrain can seem punishing in the dry season, but that is comfortably offset by the green bounty of the monsoons.

- Shruti Nambiar

This is hilly terrain, the nature’s backyard, and to be here looking to set up a living space is an effort at co-existing and blending in. “We chose to build the house as an accretion on this rocky basalt outcrop with the same inherent material transformed,” states the team from Mumbai-based Spasm Design Architects.

This house is as much a surprise as an extension of the surroundings. It is as much a refuge as an open embrace of the elements. The Spasm Design team relied on the mighty solidity of the local stone to build spaces that provide the residents shelter during the plentiful rains and heat, but also enough openness to be connected to the outside.

The most remarkable, inescapable aspect of the project, of course, is the stone itself - it has not only been used to build a sprawling, sumptuous home capable of withstanding the vagaries of weather, but to also provide incredible contrast to the softer aspects of the interior design. The stone walls stand testimony to brilliance of aesthetic design and dedicated craftsmanship of labour. Every surface, whether plain, polished, or laid out as strips, is beautiful in its tactile glory. One can imagine the surfaces changing tenor as the seasons shifts gears - imagine rain here, and the spectacle of an azure and grey sky overlooking the basalt. Magical!