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Large rocks from the surrounding area are suspended in a gabion wall around The Infinite Rise, a holiday home in southern India by local architecture practice Earthscape Studio.
The Infinite Rise is located near the village of Anaikatti on an elevated, rocky site that provides expansive views across the surrounding mountain ranges.
Looking to disrupt the site as little as possible, Earthscape Studio dug into the land to create a partially sunken, semicircular home, wrapped by a gabion wall to help it blend in.
“When we first visited the site, there was already a man-made contour in the site,” senior architect Shivani Saran S K told Dezeen.
“Since we did not want to disturb the natural landform, we utilised the space and made it camouflage with the existing landscape,” he continued.
The Infinite Rise is organised radially around a stepped, sunken pool at its centre, left exposed to the elements through a large opening in the roof that also provides ventilation.
Each room faces northwards across the landscape through full-height windows, which are shaded from the sun and heavy winds by the external gabion wall.
Between these two external layers, a thin strip contains planting and a shallow pool of water to provide further shading and protection.
“The site has a deep valley on the opposite side, causing heavy wind flow which would make the glass wobble,” explained Saran.
“To avoid this and not to disturb the beautiful view of the mountain ranges, we proposed the gabion wall where stones are suspended,” he added.
While gabion cages are usually packed with stones to provide stability, here they are organised in a more open pattern that varies in density depending on the light level and privacy required in the rooms behind them.
Along the more enclosed back of the home to the south is a retaining wall, which is also built using stones sourced from the site and left exposed.
“We sourced two to three types of rocks in each layer of the contour where the stronger ones were used for the stone retaining wall and others were used for the gabion wall,” Saran told Dezeen.
Internally, the home’s inner concrete walls have been left exposed and the floors are finished with green oxide paint, with furniture crafted from scrap wood.
Sliding glass doors open the living spaces out onto a north-facing concrete terrace, where an infinity pool is intended as as “a connecting bridge between the human and nature”.
Previous projects by Earthscape Studio include a home in Kerala built from locally produced bricks and recycled materials.
Other recently completed holiday homes include a concrete pig shed transformed into a rural retreat on the outskirts of London and a holiday home stacked with wooden screens on a site outside of São Paulo.
The photography is by Studio IKSHA.
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