A contemporary home with a subtle South Indian touch

Using a limited material palette, Muse Architects marries modern and South Indian aesthetics to create a present-day home for a nuclear family.

Curated by: Deepa Nair
Photographs: Nilkhanth Bharucha; courtesy Muse Architects

The brief

“It all started with the notion of taking the clients on a nostalgic trip, and giving the visual comfort of their ancestral home,” says Urvi Mistry, principal architect, Muse Architects about her latest project, Earth Abode. Located in Surat, this 3BHK is owned by a south Indian client who gave Urvi a well-chalked out brief — to bring their culture into their modern apartment, albeit with a contemporary twist.

The design intent

The design intent was to give a contemporary twist to modern abode in the urban context. Whispering serenity with humble materials is the fine language of this abode. Despite the copious neighbourhood, the designer has finely crafted the home of dreams with bare minimal materials and resources.

The design and material details

The domesticity of the living room with a warm colour palette unfolds a familiar chord and takes one back to the tropical architecture of southern India. The wicker furniture with its rooted wooden textures and tones seem to develop organically as one moves further. The cane detailing at the bottom half of the sofa warms up the living area, and is complemented by the customised wooden table with the greys bridging the gaps of the contextuality by making it a collage of connections between two design ideologies. From the knobs to chairs every element in this space has a pre-contemporary aura.

The adjoining dining area has been conceptualised in a similar design ideology, resulting in cane furniture contrasted with a classic French themed white kitchen. The legs of the dining table reminds one of the typical wooden column seen in traditional south Indian homes.

The master bedroom is a monochromatic picture of wooden and wicker finished furniture that depicts the contemporary touch with its fine detailing. The headboard layered with two colours adds a tinge of playfulness camouflaging into monochromatic hues. The guest bedroom narrates the layered story of a family tree. This serene white bedroom with a white wardrobe and grey hues coated in PU evokes peace with its subtleness. The canvas artefacts in figurative patterns bring a sense of joy, life, colour and character, all at the same time, into the bedroom.

The bedroom for the grandparents has a bespoke side table with an ethnic Indian pattern carved on its legs. The embossed pattern on the MDF has been PU coated in matte finish keeping the core ideology intact. The arched mirror adjacent to the study area seem to be deliberately breaking the rigid corners formed through form and textures by the elements within the space.