Who wouldn’t love to enjoy a cup of coffee and breakfast in the midst of natural greens? These green kitchens from the archives of AD India bring to you nooks that have been catered for dreamy experiences in the midst of nature, evoking a sense of calm and renewal in the heart of the home.
A Glass-Walled Ahmedabad Kitchen Brings Nature Indoors
This weekend home on the outskirts of Ahmedabad makes a good case for stone masonry. Designed by Ahmedabad-based The Grid Architects, the Rock House exemplifies one of nature’s purest structural materials not only in its form, but also in its aesthetic. The result is a glimmering rustic home that seems completely at ease with the elements. The structure is crafted in raw Dhrangadhra stone masonry, underlined with leather-finish kota stone flooring and fitted with an exposed concrete ceiling. The H-shaped layout comprises two main sections: the living room with attached dining and kitchenette, and a master suite. Both sections are connected across a courtyard, so as to receive maximum exposure to the outdoors, to simulate the experience of being nestled within nature.
The glass-walled living room is a large space that accommodates a dining area and small kitchen, surrounded by native greenery. Along the south-west corner is a covered-courtyard, populated with insect repellent plants and bordered by a stone wall that provides protection against direct sunlight. – Avantika Shankar
________________________________________________________________________
Read Also : The Science of Climate Change Explained: Facts, Evidence and Proof
________________________________________________________________________
This Linear Kerala Kitchen Is In Dialogue With The Courtyard
This 5,414-square-foot, two-level bungalow designed by Reny Lijo and Lijo Jos of Lijo.Reny architects, in Chavakkad, Kerala, is set apart by the use of a spirited tangerine as an accent colour, and its use of metal furniture. The photogenic Kerala home is filled with a contagious energy courtesy the orange, black, white, and the grey hues that appear on the walls, furniture, wall art, metal fabrications, decor items and soft furnishings. As for the clients’ brief? It was brief. “We want to enjoy the rain, from every room of our house,” they said. So Lijo proceeded with not one or two, but three large, double-height open-to-sky courtyards. “All the main rooms open into the courtyards, allowing the occupants to enjoy the rain, light and breeze with the changing seasons from the comfort of their rooms,” says Reny.
The rectangular building has frames extending into the landscape. The entrance is through a modest skylit landscape, the sit-out functioning as an outdoor living area. The overlap between indoor and outdoor, shaded and open, and built and unbuilt begins here itself. Placed perpendicular to the road with landscape surrounding it, the house has three bays making use of the site’s length and the direction of the prevailing wind. The primary bay holds the car porch, sit-out, living, powder room, kitchen and the work area. The courtyard that connects the green kitchens, dining, study and the second bedroom has less vegetation to encourage movement through it and its use as an alfresco dining or a space to unwind. – Devyani Jayakar
A Blanket Of Greens Drapes The Backdrop Of This Kerala Home
Colonnade verandas, courtyards, high ceilings, breezy folding doors and a clean contemporary design make this Wayanad, Kerala home conceptualised by Mohammed Afnan and Arun Shekar of Humming Tree, a delightful space. The home is a combination of art, furniture and, the use of locally available materials like clay, terracotta and reclaimed wood up the eco-friendly quotient of the residence. Courtyards and double height ceilings dominate the 3,200-square-foot bungalow.
In the kitchen and dining room, a custom dining table by Humming Tree is paired with three legged chairs, sourced from Mattancherry (the art hub of Kerala) and a bench. The hanging clay pendant lights were designed by Humming Tree and produced by ‘LIGHTS’, Calicut with the help of local clay makers in Kerala. Due to the smart positioning of the courtyards, the house remains remarkably cool during the day and seamlessly blends the outdoors and indoors. Behind the kitchen and dining space is a carpet of green and tall trees that stretch deep into the forest. – Bindu Gopal Rao
The Kitchen Of This Vadodara Home Overlooks A Central Court
Gated communities and co-operative housing complexes are usually known to lack privacy, blurring the lines between public and private life. Setting this project called the Blue Aperture Residence as an example, Vadodara-based architects Manav and Shivangi Patel of MS Design Studio were successfully able to create a sense of seclusion even with the limitations at hand. “Since the house is a part of a gated community, there were restrictions as to how much elevations could be modified,” Manav says, “but in our case, since the project started early on and the site area was already twice the size of any regular plot within the gated community, we had the liberty to design the architecture from scratch to suit our needs,” he continues.
Completed just recently in January 2021, this 5-bedroom, 3,400-square-feet house on a 5,500-square-feet plot was planned in such a way that most of the main spaces look out to a petite garden located in the corner of the property. The green kitchen is accentuated by pale beige walls that are a repetition of the living area’s earthy tones. The continuity of the open layout kitchen is broken by wooden inserts, while an ivory screen elegantly partitions the dining from the cooking appliances. – Nolan Lewis
________________________________________________________________________
Read Also : Climate change ‘unequivocal’ and ‘unprecedented,’ says new U.N. report
________________________________________________________________________
A Quaint Kerala Kitchen With An Indoor Green Pocket
Brothers and textile entrepreneurs Nisar and Sakeer have always shared a close bond—so much so, that when they decided to build homes of their own in Malappuram, Kerala, they knew they wanted them next door to each other. They knew serendipity had come knocking when they came across a pair of adjacent land parcels that were close enough for comfort yet distant enough to afford each brother’s family a sense of individuality. To build the homes, they turned to architect Uvais Subu of Tropical Architecture Bureau, to whom they lent direction with a simple brief: two separate homes with some kind of connection. What kind, and of what nature, was left open to interpretation.
Luckily, some trial and error led to a plan that worked: two near-identical houses with a connecting bridge. A win-win-win for the architect and both families. Having worked in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, Subu’s tropical modern signature naturally parlayed into the project. And a minimalist, nature-facing design language was born. The interior design, meanwhile, is understated—for good reason. “It was kept neutral so as not to take the focus away from the architecture,” says Subu. To this end, he maintained a muted palette of walnut veneer and beige tones for the shell, while adding vibrancy with colourful furniture and lush pocket gardens—and the kitchen overlooks one such pocket. – Vaishnavi Nayel Talawadekar
NOTE – This article was originally published in architecturaldigest and can be viewed here
Tags: #aesthetic, #breakfast, #getgreengetgrowing, #gngagritech, #greenery, #greenkitchens, #greenstories, #HummingTree, #kerala, #kitchen, #Malappuram, #nature
