S+PS Architects

25/10/2024

Playbox_1/2
2005, Mumbai

At 120 square feet and 3 weeks, this is the smallest and fastest project the studio has ever done, but one of the most fulfilling and representative of who we are as a practice.

This was to be a haven for a ten-year old girl. Her parents, who happen to be longtime friends of the architects, wanted their growing daughter to have a private space. Fortunately, the house was built in the 1950’s by the girls grandfather, a structural consultant. So, the existing living-cum-dining space, along with the kitchen was topped with a thin two-way concrete shell/vaulted slab with clerestory windows on all sides. This additional ceiling height was what we capitalized on. It is almost like creating a space out of thin air. The idea was to create a floating cube that would perch delicately over the wall that divided the kitchen from the living room. Also, this feature did not hamper the feel, volume and openness of the domed space.

Photographed by:
Photographix India

25/10/2024

Enso House_4/4
2020, Mumbai

One reaches the terrace from this level with another spiral stair that emerges out of a textured black stone disk on the floor but is topped by a newly introduced skylight that terminates the vertical axis with a polished copper cone framing & reflecting the sky beyond. The terrace is entered through a black mild steel cube onto a wooden deck with an alfresco dining space with automated movable louvers protecting from sun and rain. The private pool with an outdoor seating space and projection wall for screening movies outdoors, along with abundant planting and vegetable patches, complete the terrace experience.

Design Team:
Kalyani Gupta
Vyoma Popat
Tasneem Gabajiwala .neembu

Photographed by:
Photographix India

25/10/2024

Enso House_3/4
2020, Mumbai

To increase interaction and communication between this small family of three- a large, round, convex, polished steel pivoted window opens from the son’s bedroom into the double-height void and recalls Anish Kapoor’s polished steel Cloud Gate/Bean sculpture that the family could see from their previous apartment in Chicago. Upon reaching the upper level, there is a multipurpose room with a sleeping cubicle for guests and a concealed puja space with a work desk. A sliding partition gives the flexibility of enclosing the room whenever required.

Design Team:
Kalyani Gupta
Vyoma Popat
Tasneem Gabajiwala .neembu

Photographed by:
Photographix India

25/10/2024

Enso House_2/4
2020, Mumbai

One of the first moves was to shift the location of the staircase from its original location into the double-height void and convert it into a spiral stair, making it the primary protagonist. This visually anchors the space and is where everything comes together - the vertical condition of the double-height, transverse flow into the outdoor deck, and longitudinal connection across three bays of the dining, living, and media room.

The living space is backed on one side by a wooden unit with oversized curved copper handles accommodating a multitude of service spaces and on the window side by a hollow grey marble portal. This portal defines a raised seating area with a concealed drinks cabinet (behind a sliding marble shutter) and a suspended cast glass bar counter that overlooks the sprawling greens of Aarey below. The dining area is in the double-height space and flows out into a sunlit deck flooded with plants. A vaulted concrete ceiling over all the public areas at both levels, combines and scales down the spaces. The double-height wall responds accordingly to this with its convex surfaces of precast concrete panels in various widths.

Design Team:
Kalyani Gupta
Vyoma Popat
Tasneem Gabajiwala .neembu

Photographed by:
Photographix India

25/10/2024

Enso House_1/4
2020, Mumbai

A lot was happening in 2020 when we were appointed to design a penthouse on the 50th and 51st floor, with a terrace and pool on the 52nd floor. There was a need to feel a sense of freedom in an otherwise restrictive situation that the world had come to during COVID-19. One wanted to sense the free air and the ground simultaneously. Luckily the borrowed landscape of the Aarey Colony helped soothe the eyes. The clients came with memories from their long stay of 15 years in Chicago but there was also the palpable excitement of getting their bespoke home “custom” designed for the first time. At the same time, we got to know of a particular community of weavers in Kutch who were facing great difficulties finding work due to the pandemic. How does one begin to pull together all these disparate thoughts and feelings into crafting a new home?

To make the apartment feel large and fluid, we opened up the guest room into a large screen media area on the lower level and made it contiguous with the living and dining spaces. We asked Damjibhai and his team from Kutch to specially weave a carpet as per our design and reinforced the idea through the home by an in-situ terrazzo “carpet”, with Jaisalmer, granite, copper, and marble inlays, that stretched over the spaces and bound them together. This picks up on the same hues and motifs that were part of the real woven carpet.

Design Team:
Kalyani Gupta
Vyoma Popat
Tasneem Gabajiwala .neembu

Photographed by:
Photographix India

25/10/2024

The Verandah_3/3
2009, Lonavala

The existing buildings had load-bearing walls right in their centre, and for them to be used efficiently for their new programs like the gymnasium or the indoor games room- this would have to be addressed. Back-to-back steel I-sections were joined to create built-up sections that spanned across the width of the structures opening up the centers for beneficial use. The central bay had a larger steel mezzanine and stair inserted over the steam room and changing rooms for accommodating the library and reading room. Here again, the centre was opened up not only at one level but also along the full height and involved complex structural jugglery where the load of the existing wooden trusses was transferred onto an interconnecting steel hanger column. The reading room overlooks the lounge space below from where the stair originates.

A raw concrete box seems to pierce all the 3 parts interconnecting them internally and adding all the service spaces and wet cores in the gaps between the buildings. Exposed board-formed concrete was the single material used on all 4 sides - inside and out. This piece is raised and appears to float off the ground – contrasting with the existing rooted buildings. Round skylights punctuate the spaces bringing in light from above. There are strategically placed built-in wooden benches in these interstitial spaces, offering a pause between activities and a view outward through carefully calibrated openings at seating height.

Design Team:
Divya Malu
Pooja Satam .satam27
Benny Mathew
Pratik Taishete
Divya Jain
Nusrat Karovalia
Rhea Lopes

Photographed by:
Photographix India

21/10/2024

some ruminating instigated by a recent event . . .

do read and share feedback on what you think

Pinkish Shah critiques the SPADE India Foundation event, organised by Samira Rathod Design Atelier (SRDA).

09/10/2024

The Verandah_2/3
2009, Lonavala

The first step was to interlink all three parts by joining and extending the verandah to connect all the new buildings. There is nothing better during the monsoon time than to sit under a verandah and watch the rain. Components like the stone plinth; stone column base, wooden columns and rafters were rescued, recycled and reused from other similar structures on the site. Layers of paint were stripped off all the woodwork and polished highlighting the beauty of old timber. Windows were restored and in-filled with colored and patterned glass. Heritage tiles on the floor are laid as if light streaming through the windows has highlighted them and made them come alive.

One step was to add the Multipurpose Hall to the ensemble. A group of three trees prevented immediate continuity of the concrete box. We decided to repeat the exact same size and footprint as the existing building but with an inverted roof with the same angle and slope as the existing buildings. This along with other gestures completely inverts the spatiality of the older buildings. The space goes from being dark to one filled with light from above. The division between the 2 parts is implied but it is really one space at the floor level. Space that was inward-looking & centred in the old building is now inverted to become extroverted and flows diagonally to the outside.

Design Team:
Divya Malu
Pooja Satam .satam27
Benny Mathew
Pratik Taishete
Divya Jain
Nusrat Karovalia
Rhea Lopes

Photographed by:
Photographix India

07/10/2024

The Verandah_1/3
2009, Lonavala

The project is situated within a larger housing scheme in Lonavala, Maharashtra. The site used to be a Parsi Sanitarium, which in its new avatar was to become community housing. Since the first day when we saw the existing structures, we were keen to reuse them as part of the project in some form. These structures were nothing overtly special but had good character, large volumes and were made of resilient materials. They were representative of their time but more importantly, along with the large mature group of trees around them had a wonderful atmosphere marking a special place on the whole site. We proposed to the clients that we could convert this ensemble into the amenities wing with all public leisure and recreation facilities housed here.

The buildings were simple gabled tile roof structures with load-bearing walls and verandahs in the front. Over time they had been expanded with lean-to roofs at the back. The rear extensions were not in good shape and it was decided to demolish them. We also realized that the remaining area was not adequate for all the programs required and would need an extension. It was decided to amplify the character of the existing buildings with careful restoration and renovation but also add the new components representative of our time.

Varied elements are brought together by the articulated ground plane and plinth that ties together all the existing trees and buildings –both old and new.

Design Team:
Divya Malu
Pooja Satam .satam27
Benny Mathew
Pratik Taishete
Divya Jain
Nusrat Karovalia
Rhea Lopes

Photographed by:
Photographix India

04/10/2024

Design I.Y. Housing_ 6/6
2009, Lonavala

We see the spaces provided as a setting and a backdrop for the humdrum and messiness of daily life to be lived and for nature to begin to take over through the several green spaces provided.  Hopefully a community- aware of their similarities and respectful of their differences - will form and flourish here.

Design Team:
Divya Malu
Pooja Satam .satam27
Benny Mathew
Pratik Taishete
Divya Jain
Nusrat Karovalia
Rhea Lopes

Photographed by:
Photographix India