A father in Chennai gave his daughter a house as a wedding gift. The architects built it almost entirely from brick, and used that “primitive” material to solve a problem glass and concrete usually can’t.
The Gully Home sits on an east facing plot overlooking the Bay of Bengal, meaning it takes the full force of the morning sun in exchange for the ocean view. ED+ Architecture’s answer was a double skinned facade: porotherm blocks on the inside, half cut bricks on the outside, cooling the interior while trapping heat in the wall itself rather than passing it through. Every window pairs an inward glass shutter with an outer aluminium louvered one, giving residents six different combinations of light, view, and airflow depending on the hour.
Inside, a triple height great room named after old Chennai’s street life pulls every bedroom’s bay window toward it, so the house stays visually connected floor to floor. The roof slab is layered with terracotta pots as fillers, cutting the concrete needed and the heat it would’ve absorbed.
Nothing about it reads primitive. It reads solved.
The Gully Home | ED+ Architecture
Chennai, India | 2022 | Photography: BRS Sreenag