Accommodating a family of four, the single-storey residence has a rectilinear plan orientated to face a view of the Arabian Sea to the west.

A glazed wall stretches across the sea-facing facade, offering a panoramic view from the living room and two bedrooms positioned alongside. The panels slide open to lead out to the swimming pool and surrounding terrace.

WE Design Studio constructed the walls of the house from brick and they are coated in lime plaster to give a uniform colour.

"The brief was to build a compact house for a family of four, which is easy to manage and maintain," architects Nupur Shah and Saahil Parikh told Dezeen. "We were given a very moderate budget to work with and the construction and material choices have been largely influenced by it."

The pale-coloured exterior contrasts with the dark grey tones of the basalt stone retaining walls that surround the building. These walls lift the house up from the steeply sloping hillside in front, but also support an access road at the rear.

Flooring inside the house displays the same texture as the surface of the terrace outside, finished in a locally sourced limestone called Shahabad.

Other houses featured on Dezeen from India include a residence with a scooping concrete roof and a house with a rooftop swimming pool on stilts. See more architecture in India.

Photography is by Ira Gosalia.

Here are a few words from WE Design Studio:

House in Alibaug, India

This 3500 square foot single family house is located on a two acre hill in Kashid, Alibaug. The house comprises two intersecting monolithic volumes that are oriented to maximize a spectacular panoramic view of the Arabian Sea.

Two stone retaining walls made of locally available basalt wrap around the front and rear of the house. The articulation of spaces is governed by the different ways in which these volumes interact with the stone walls.

The pool and deck seamlessly integrate interior with the surrounding landscape, establishing a strong sense of continuity. The house is a result of a continuous negotiation between topography, programmatic requirements and economy.

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WE Design Studio appeared first on Dezeen.

News: Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture has unveiled its competition-winning proposal to build Mumbai's tallest skyscraper.

The 400-metre-high, 116-storey Imperial Tower would become the tallest building in the Indian city if construction goes ahead.

The tower would have a slender, aerodynamic shape designed to "confuse the wind" and withstand strong currents, according to Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture.

Green terraces called "sky gardens" would also break up wind currents, say the architects, whose kilometre-high Kingdom Tower in Saudi Arabia is currently under construction.

The proposal includes plans for 132 residential units, some as large as 1,115 square metres, along with smaller serviced apartments.

Other projects by the same architects include a high-density, car-free city in China and a pair of 450 metre-high towers with glass scales – see all projects by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture.

At the start of the year we took a look at the ten tallest skyscrapers set to complete around the world in 2013 – see all skyscrapers on Dezeen.

Here's some more information from the architects:

Imperial Tower Competition
Mumbai, India

At 116 stories and 400 meters tall, Imperial Tower was designed to be the tallest building in the city and a prototype for Mumbai, a densely developed but mostly low-rise metropolis whose urban future revolves around tall residential towers.

The softly curvilinear form of this tall, elegantly slender tower is aerodynamically shaped to “confuse the wind,” minimising the negative effects of wind action on the tower. Wind vortex shedding is also mitigated by the north- and south-facing sky gardens, which break up wind currents around the tower. The sky gardens also provide unprecedented access to light, views and connection with the natural world that are unprecedented in Mumbai.

Imperial Tower will also offer the most spacious and luxurious residences in Mumbai. The 76,272- square-metre tower includes 132 residential units of between 195 and 1115 square metres, along with serviced apartments of between 72 and 252 square meters. All of the upper-storey condominiums offer breathtaking views of the Arabian sea.

Architecturally, the exterior wall provides a strong visual contrast with the heavy masonry cladding of most surrounding buildings. The exterior wall is highly sustainable, blocking heat gain and diffusing direct sunlight in the hot and humid climate of Mumbai.

The sustainability of Imperial Tower is also evident in its treatment of water, one of the area's most precious resources. Water from mechanical systems is collected and treated as greywater; rainfall is also collected for re-use by the units. High-efficiency mechanical systems, a green-wall podium and the use of native plants in the landscaping and sky gardens also adds to the project's sustainable performance. As+GG is also exploring a plan for kitchens and bathrooms to be pre-fabricated, possibly at a nearby mini-factory that would train a new local workforce.

Services: Architecture, interior design
Client: SD Corporation Pvt. ltd.
Function: Mixed-use
Facts: 400 m height, 116 storeys

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tallest tower appeared first on Dezeen.

Dutch designer Pepe Heykoop has worked with people from one of Mumbai's poorest areas to transform traditional water carriers into leathery vases.

Based on techniques used in Heykoop's earlier Skin Collection, the project recycles Indian stainless steel water carriers called 'matkas' by covering them with high quality scrap leather.

The patchwork of leather forms random patterns which are different on every piece.

To produce them, Heykoop teamed up with Tiny Miracles Foundation, a charity that aims to raise one poor community living in Mumbai's red-light district to middle-class status within 10 years.

Locals are now employed by Heykoop to make the vases in a workshop in the neighbourhood.

Photographs are by Annemarijne Bax.

See more vases on Dezeen »

Here's some more information from Pepe Heykoop:

Using distinctive techniques from his Skin Collection, Matka Vases are designed by Pepe Heykoop and produced in his workshop located in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Mumbai, India, providing meaningful jobs, income and hope for the neediest.

Matka Vase is designed using recycled Matka's (traditional Indian stainless steel water carriers) and scrap leather. Every single vase contains a unique and personal story both of its previous owner and the person who gave it new life and use. Matka Vase has just recently gone into production and proceeds from sales are partly used to send street children to school.

As a reaction to the huge amount of waste of high quality leather created by the furniture industry (25 up to 30%), Pepe has designed the Skin Collection in 2011. In 2012, the Matka vase was born. The scraps generate a unique and random pattern as every piece has a different shape, giving the Matka a new life by turning waste into a Vase.

In this way, Matka's represent a signature product of Pepe Heykoop: they tell a story of change and growth, a different one for each unique piece of hand-made furniture. Thus it makes sense that his favorite materials are recycled; they are ready to tell a story and grow into a new product.

About Pepe Heykoop:

Dutch designer Pepe Heykoop (28) recently set up a workshop together with Tiny Miracles Foundation right in the middle of the poverty stricken, red light district of Mumbai, India. In 2010, he started working with this community when he started manufacturing Leather Lampshades with jobless slum moms. These Lampshades became a global success.

Pepe graduated from the prestigious Design Academy in Eindhoven in 2008 and has been awarded with multiple awards for his designs. Pepe has exhibited his works at numerous design shows including Milan, Singapore, Tokyo, New York and London and has his home base in Amsterdam, where most new concepts and products are born, based on unique low-cost techniques.

About Tiny Miracles Foundation:

Tiny Miracles Foundation is run by Pepe's cousin Laurien Meuter and focuses on one community in Mumbai, India. This 1,000 people community lives on the pavement in the middle of the red light district. The goal is to lift this community from 'very poor' to 'middle class' within 10 years and turn it into the 'City of Miracles'. Essential to making the community self-supporting is income generation. This will be realized through production in Pepe's workshop. Part of the proceeds are donated to the foundation to fund child education.

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by Pepe Heykoop appeared first on Dezeen.

Architect Filipe Balestra of Urban Nouveau has sent us his proposal for a series of towers built in the swamps surrounding Mumbai, sketched out on a napkin.

Balestra's idea is to allow expansion of the city without displacing the rubbish dump, recycling centre and homes at the city's centre.

Urban Nouveau previously developed a proposal for sensitively revitalising slums, which was featured in the Dezeen Book of Ideas – on sale now for just £12.

Here's some text about the concept from Urban Nouveau:

Bombay - maximum city, surrounded by water - is just in time to pick up an evolutionary strategy for the benefit of all. Dharavi - in the heart of Bombay - is one of the world’s largest urban villages. It contains the city’s garbage recycling centre and is the home of the cleaners, the taxi drivers and the people without whom the current urban processes are unfeasible.

What if, instead of moving the people of Dharavi to the outskirts of the city and using that land to build new housing, offices and leisure... all the necessary program would be built inside towers which rise from the shallow swamps that surround the city, branding Bombay with a new perspective: from the water. Existing Bombay remains as it is, and is incremented naturally. Pressure withdraws from the city centre. Dharavi stays.

Boats and bridges connect the shore with the new islands. The islands are easy to build because the water level is low. The respect for local flora and fauna is the starting point of this environmental and socially sustainable process.

Urban Nouveau is an interdisciplinary platform which supports an open network of human beings solving problems of everyday life. Urban Nouveau declares itself elastic to bridge formal-informal, legal-illegal, city-countryside in order to achieve appropriate balance in every challenge. Combining improvisation and intuition with research and expertise while performing on local and global issues, Urban Nouveau thrives on collective evolution.

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