Neer-vaana

Neer-vaana Residence is conceived as a contemporary interpretation of Indian joint family living, bringing three brothers and their families together within a shared estate. At its heart lies a question central to the practice’s exploration of collective domesticity: how to preserve intimacy, ritual, and the layered life of an extended family while expressing it through an architectural language that feels unmistakably contemporary. The response is not to fragment the family into separate houses, but to create a more continuous world of shared landscape, private dwelling, and spaces for gathering.

The site gives the project its deeper resonance. Set on a reclaimed irrigation lake, the residence is shaped by a conservation-led approach that restores the ecological and cultural life of the waterbody rather than treating it as scenic backdrop. The lake edge, marked by old temples and abandoned chhatri structures, becomes part of the project’s larger narrative. Cleaning and recharging the lake, reviving its ecological balance, and introducing a jetty for boating and recreation transform the site into an active landscape of inhabitation.

That dialogue between restoration and dwelling continues in the architecture. Metal and stone lend the elevations an enduring and measured character, mediating between the inherited gravity of the site and the openness of the new intervention. Each residence is oriented towards uninterrupted lake views, reinforcing water as the project’s organising presence. Pools and water features are detailed to visually merge with the larger waterbody, their cascading edges giving the impression that the home itself dissolves into the landscape.

Rehabilitated chhatris and landscaped gardens become settings for celebration and seasonal ritual, while chandeliers inspired by rippling water carry the presence of the lake inward. The residence becomes a confluence of ecological repair, cultural memory, and contemporary family life, held together by the enduring presence of water.