Projects05
The Narrow House
A 4.2-metre-wide row house where every piece of storage was built into the depth of a wall.
- Project
- 05
- Year
- 2022
- Location
- Kothrud, Pune
- Area
- 1,420 SQ FT
- Type
- Residential
- Duration
- 18 WEEKS
The brief
A couple with a young child in a row house four metres wide. Every freestanding cupboard they owned narrowed the only route through the house. They had been told the answer was to get rid of things. The answer was to stop putting storage in the circulation.
The approach
We took 350mm off the length of the house and gave it to a single storage wall running the full depth on the south side. Everything the household owns is now inside that wall — wardrobes, pantry, shoe storage, the washing machine, the electrical board. The route through the house is a clear 1.1 metres from the front door to the rear, which it had never been.
Because the wall is continuous and flush, it reads as a surface rather than as furniture, and the house feels wider despite being shorter. The fronts are a pale oak veneer with a shadow-gap instead of handles, so there is nothing to catch a hip on in a corridor this tight. Light comes from a single rear window and a stairwell rooflight, so every finish was chosen pale and matt to move that light as far forward as possible.
Materials
Pale oak veneer · Micro-cement · Matt lacquer · Blackened steel
Before & after
Drag the divider to compare the original space with the finished room. Both photographs are taken from the same position.
