2020 House

Project Name: 2020 House
Authors: Cochin Creative Collective

CITATION

The interior space of urban dwellings is a common design archetype. Post liberalisation, the space for interior design has broadened out to an enormous range of materials, finishes and objects, often reducing the essential act of design to curation and selection of objects and surfaces. In this small project, the designers propose an alternative spatial approach where the space is treated as a resource and the design as an act of revealing the potential of the space.

The plan of the apartment breaks the rectilinear geometry of the found space by introducing curves and opening up, diagrammatically and physically, the diagonal. Once the given logic of the space is dismantled, it is structured for interconnections, interactions and flow. A table establishes the core of the house; the table helps anchor the activities to work, play, cook and eat.

The clinical white interior space is contrasted by the use of warm, tactile timber, and the house reveals this warm timber interior gradually. The layering of functions and the many activity overlaps enhance the liveability of space through changing demands over a typical day. The meticulous detailing augments the sensory journey through the small unit.

The architects use drawings to narrate the story of the project; however, venturing beyond the communication, the drawings are generative of the space itself. This small project deepens a discussion on the power of design to heighten the lived experience in the most constrained of spaces through an architectonic dismantling and reassembling, and therefore, 2020 House by Cochin Creative Collective is awarded a Citation in The Merit List.