003
1868 House
Year: 2017
Location: Kottayam, Kerala
Type: Residence, Conservation, Adaptive Reuse
Status: Unbuilt
Area: 3180 sqft
Design Team:
Madhushitha CA, Lijo John Mathew, Aiswarya Sreekumar
Award: IIA National Awards 2018, Aces of Space Award by Architect and Interiors India 2019, FOAID ICA Creative minds Award 2023
Conservation of a 150 year old riverside dwelling in Kerala leads to recognizing in adaptability to requirements of its fourth generation inheritors. The relevance of thermal comforts of courtyard typology with respect to different living patterns is variable. The tower and block forms and the dialogue between old and new tries to negotiate these differences.Intention was not to create a romantic image of the past but to rather use the remains of the past as a stimulus to present aesthetic interest and philosophical interpretation. Architectural experience is of the present but also exploits accidents and collisions, juxtapositions and relationships that were in the building before our encounter with it. On a building that already had many layers from the past, adding a new imaginative layer results in a poetic and complex solution rather than a mere restoration of parts.