Two buildings for one corner

A pre-school, eight homes and a residents' roof on a corner plot, answered twice with exactly the same floor area.

Job: 16
Type: Mixed use
Place: Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar
Year: 2026
Stage: Concept
Area: 255.56 m² a floor, in both options
Our part: Architecture, survey review, planning rules, two design options, visualisation.

One building, three publics

The brief asks one building to hold three publics: parking on stilts, a pre-school for about sixty children, eight apartments, and an amenity floor at the top. Two roads meet at the plot's south-east corner, its only public point, and the plot stands above the road.

We drew it twice. Both options enclose exactly 255.56 m² on every floor, so neither buys its character with the owner's area. The choice is only about the kind of building the family wants.

Option A from the street corner: terracotta jaali, ochre render and a basalt plinth — Option A, Otta, Padvi, Chowk.

Option B from the street corner: off-white slab bands, timber louvres and planting spilling from every floor — Option B, The Turning Stack.

A: mass and screen

Two courts are cut into the west face behind a full-height terracotta jaali. A basalt plinth, ochre render and punched openings. It is regional, passive and quiet, and it improves with age.

Apartment living room opening onto a court behind a terracotta jaali, with a built-in seat — An apartment and its court behind the jaali.

Pre-school verandah with a red wall, timber windows and a long rail — The pre-school verandah.

Roof court with a timber pergola, planting and a long water channel at dusk — The residents' roof chowk.

Stilt floor of concrete columns on a basalt plinth, open to the street — The stilt floor, raised on its basalt plinth above the road.

B: frame and garden

Two full-height gardens sit at opposite corners, north-east and south-west, so every flat looks two ways. Off-white slab bands, timber sliding louvres, cascading planting and a rounded corner. It is at its best on the first day, and it depends on care.

Corner living room with full-height sliding glass opening onto a garden terrace with a frangipani tree — A corner garden, open on two sides.

Roof garden with timber screens, planters and a long water channel at dusk — The roof garden.

The west face of option A: a full-height terracotta jaali with courts behind it — The west face, A.

The west face of option B: timber louvres between planted slab bands — The west face, B.

Our recommendation is A, unless the flats are to be sold rather than held, or the owner funds the care the gardens of B will need. Design visualisations, August 2026.

Images are design visualisations by Voids & Volumes, made from the project's own model and drawings, unless a caption says otherwise.

Next project

A narrow house facing south

Residential, in progress

The same house at dusk, lit from behind its teak screen