State Commendation Award at the 18th Architect of the Year
Awards 2008 for Indian State Architecture Awards (ISAA)

Architects - Auroville, Pondicherry, India

Private House Douceur Auroville 2004/6

Architect: Pino Marchese & Sheril Castelino
Construction: Giorgio Luciani
Area: 125 sqm + facade makeover
Cost: Rs.15 lacs
Period: 2004/2006

As one approaches the house two large walls offset and split open in the centre to provide the 'gateway' that spills onto the expanse of a grand & minutely cured garden on the inside.

At the entrance there are podiums of dry landscaping with pebbles & boulders that direct to the main door. Upon entering the living cum dining space one experiences the T-shape of the house that opens out to a dry desert type landscaped swimming pool area on one side and lush tropical gardenscape with the pond on the other.

The service area is accessed from the kitchen. Generously lit by big polycarbonate skylights, each of the spaces has beautiful diffused light thus explaining the small wall fenestrations in the form of slits in one area and grid of small square openings in the other. Here again solar photovoltaics are used to meet the hot water demand of the whole house.

The house is painted in two tropical shades of orange that highlight the different volumes of the house. Dry zen gardens fill in the voids creating the transition between the green landscape and the house.

Materials of Construction Details:

• Mud plastered compound walls
• R.C.C. frame structure and brick walls.
• Aerocon comfort tiles on roof slab.
• Polycarbonate skylights
• Solar pump & energy demand partly met by photovoltaics

Special features:

• The house is in a egoless- timeless style with north south orientation and openings aligned for maximum south east wind. The language for the house goes beyond fads & doesn't struggle to be new or inventive for the sake of it.
• In the rural set-up of Auroville where technologies and materials connected with modern architecture are hard to procure, the challenge and joy is in reinventing old techniques along with the knowledge of social and climatic conditions.
• The architecture expressed by the dreams and aspirations of a nation or a community stand as an expression of its core values in matter and the multiplicity of styles and typologies found in Auroville reflect the cultural, ideological, ecological and climatic factors that have shaped it until over the four decades.