A new compendium of contemporary Indian architecture by writer Rob Gregory and photographer Edmund Sumner draws together over 20 homes from some of the country’s brightest architects.

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Contemporary House India, published by Thames & Hudson, is the result of a long-standing collaboration between renowned architectural photographer Edmund Sumner and architectural writer Rob Gregory, who met during Gregory’s 10-year stint writing for the Architectural Review.

Prefaced by a conversation on contemporary Indian homes with Pritzker Prize-winning Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi, the book presents a capsule of single and multi-generational dwellings by practices including Ahmedabad-based Matharoo Associates, Bangalore office Khosla Associates and Architecture Brio from Mumbai.

“We tried to look at India in twenty houses – which was sort of crazy,” says Sumner. “We looked at some of the brightest architects working today in India, some of the emerging practices and also some of the titans.”

“In one way the book is inherently flawed because it’s so limited. It’s the Indian subcontinent and you can only get so many case studies in the book so representation of the profession is very small. I realised very early on that I needed to think about how best to make the book meaningful,” adds Gregory.

Gregory hosted an event at an architecture school CEPT University in Ahmedabad, inviting architects to present and discuss the schemes that appear in the book. The symposium drew out four themes under which the projects are categorised – Urban Living, Remote Villas, New Settlement and Improvisation.

“I went with an open mind to see what theme would emerge that might become the focus for the introductory essays,” he says. “I was quite conscious, the Indian architectural fraternity are quite critical about outsider voices, and you’ve got to be respectful the you don’t wade in there and make assumptions.”

Each section begins with an introductory essay and includes an analysis of houses by Gregory illustrated by drawings and photographs taken by Sumner during extensive trips to India since 2008.

“It’s not architectural criticism and it’s not a coffee table book, it sits somewhere in between. Maybe a book of record is a good way to describe it,” says Gregory.

Four extracts from Rob Gregory’s texts are published alongside photography by Edmund Sumner below:

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Wood House by Matra Architects
Satkhol, Uttarakhand

The bold silhouette of Wood House encapsulates the architects’ belief that structure can express qualities relating to the terrain on which it sits, and that the resolution of structure is how buildings communicate ideas. In its most elemental reading, the house can be surmised as a trio of stone terraces, sitting beneath a simple timber frame. The experience in context, however, is much more dramatic, layered and complex.

Located in isolation and set against a dramatic Himalayan backdrop, visitors approach from high level, zig-zagging along an open trail. The angular roofline is the first evidence of habitation, and the building presents itself as a modest, single-storey dwelling. Closer still, as the mountainous horizon disappears behind the timber-clad form, the relationship between terrace and frame, ground and sky, is articulated by the front door, which expands the junction between this dual mode of construction.

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Fissured Living by Matharoo Associates
Ahmedabad, Gujarat

This house is also designed to provide independent living to a large, multi-generational family, made up of the families of two brothers and their ageing parents. Unlike the former, however, this house uses masonry in a boldly static form to provide privacy, capture hidden treasures of the landscape and moderate the region’s fiercely hot climate.

With almost no visible glazing, the house resembles, on approach, the ultimate built version of Minecraft – a series of monolithic stone forms piled up to create an imposing and fortified composition. The only concessions to that popular video game are the occasional circular column appearing inside and out, and the fact that the module is rectangular, rather than a pure cube. In deference to the house’s name, the architect is keen to emphasise the space between the masses themselves, as small cracks on the exterior open up into large caverns within.

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Brick House by Romi Kholsa Design Studios
New Delhi, India

The urban conditions that this house, designed by Romi Khosla Design Studios, negotiates include the sharply tapering geometry of the plot and a number of pre-existing mature trees, which sit just beyond the site boundary. Designed for a family of four, and to accommodate regular visits from grandparents, the living space is broken down into three distinct blocks, which provide communal, private and service spaces in a prominent composition open to the neighbourhood on three sides.

To the rear, where the site is at its broadest, the 22 m (72 ft)-wide boundary is pinned down by a slender, tower-like form that contains all of the house’s service and staff accommodation. Instead of being relegated to a basement or tucked away in hidden corners of the site, the tower gives a certain prominence and pride to what are often neglected spaces. It also sets up the formal and material language for the rest of the property, which comprises two blocks that are more squat in form, and broaden, step down, change material and open up to fine views into the neighbouring trees in a controlled, four-stage transition.

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Lattice House by Sameep Padora & Associates
Jammu City

Lattice House, when read as an essay in duality, becomes emblematic of the stark contrasts that co-exist within India’s constantly developing urban context. Located in a new suburb on the outskirts of Jammu City in northwestern India, and described by its architect as an ‘urban marker’, this provocative structure is much more than a private home, giving form to the relatively unregulated process of rapid, chaotic change that many urban communities are having to face.

Displaying little in the way of traditional domesticity and sharing more in common with the neighbouring pylons, this imposing structure could at first glance be mistaken for a piece of much-needed new infrastructure – a substation or pumping station, perhaps, screened by what appear to be rusty metal gratings. On closer inspection, however, the ‘metal’ is revealed as the finely detailed timber panels of a bold and highly conspicuous new private home.

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