Contemporary sub-urban living demands an adept ambience; they want breathing room and disdain wastefulness. Nestled away from the bustle of the city, this two-story house built on a 20 perch land is home to a family of four. The challenge faced by the architects was the planning and transformation of sub-urban living through revolutionary design.

The location and context of a site determines to a great extent the environmental comfort achievable by building. Efficiency in use of space, material and energy are key notions that shaped this home to form a smart habitat. Sub-urban houses a few decades ago did not share the principle needs addressed by this design.

‘New sub-urban living’ attempts to simultaneously meet the demand for efficient use of resources and the need for affordable solutions with an experimental design response.

The architects approached this task by featuring the garden landscape and outdoor space framed by the house form. A flexible and innovative vision was necessary for this small site with realistic limits; be it financial, aesthetic, climate responsive and environmentally responsible; delivering an interesting and inspirational product.

Adopting passive design strategies such as minimized built footprint, reduced paved areas with soft landscaped forecourt offers adaptable green space serving both ecological and recreational purpose. The ratio of hard landscaping is minimized for better absorption of storm water run-off.

The green terrace roof open to the bedroom level with lush vegetation offers evaporative cooling to the lower floor while keeping the garden in reach at the upper floor. All of the interior spaces are awash with daylight and allow channels of natural breeze. The home owners find beauty in the utilitarian allowing for logical composition of floor layouts, materials and finishes.

The house displays a means of exploring the untapped potential of a given site with different and creative ways of making the most of sub-urban space.