A weekend house is where inhabitants retreat; to disconnect from everyday life and to connect with nature. The synthesis of nature and architecture is vital – whereby our natural environment’s complexity is injected into a man made sense of order (and vice versa), bringing forth a new definition of space that responds to our changing lifestyle.

Domus India (June-July 2014)

Arjun Malik’s Mumbai-based practice has recently completed the construction of a house within a forested site in Alibaug. To protect the existing trees on site, the house has been segregated into components based on functionality and dispersed on site in and around the forested landscape within the exposed surfaces. This fragmentation of the built form is bound by the physical parameters of the sites characteristics and topology.

The house situated in idyllic Alibaug is oriented facing north and distributed over two levels – primarily above ground and the baths being located below ground. The form is conceived as a series of juxtaposed elements defining the different atmospheres and spaces. This unique setting of the site and structure belongs to a long tradition of residential architecture but aspires to be more than a mere residence. It is a contemporary dwelling but within the design, can find echoes of older precedents with new and refined ideas.

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