At home with great design

Architects Sonali and Manit Rastogi's newly built house stands out in an otherwise dull row of houses in New Delhi's Panchsheel Park. The house that this talented husband-wife duo have built is stunning as well as architecturally innovative.

As you enter the house through the wooden front door you come upon a slim sliding partition door that disguises the fact that the plot really has two separate houses "" a downstairs section where Manit's parents live, and the upper two floors where Manit and Sonali live with their two children. Yet from the outside the house gives no indication of the separate units.

But what makes this house noteworthy is its skillful use of technology. Says Sonali, "Technology is our forte." The "our" that Sonali refers to is her husband as well as their two partners that make up the architecture/design firm Morphogenesis that has been winning accolades and awards.

And indeed, technology is evident all over the Rastogi house. The living space, which Sonali says was deliberately designed not to be rigid but free-flowing, has large glass panes in the front and to the side.

Says Sonali, warming up to the topic of technology, "Its a poor understanding of technology that makes people say things like 'glass is bad'." Explaining how glass can work in a hot country like India, she says, "The kind of glass we have used in the house makes the house cooler. We have used two layers of laminated glass in between which is three layers of PVB, and it has a low-emission coating."

To cut to the chase, in layman's terms, it's all good, for the house stays cool and requires lower airconditioning tonnage even for the top floor. "The second floor is as cool in the summer as the first floor," says Sonali. "It's the way we have used technology."

According to the philosophy that the group follows at Morphogenesis, all the buildings they design must be environmentally friendly "" but with a difference. Says Sonali, "Being environmentally friendly is the bottomline of all our projects, but it's not about using recycled paper or fly-ash bricks. Today, technology makes it possible to be environmentally friendly."

To illustrate that point, Sonali points to a rockery in the middle of the living space, where there are plants growing on the first floor without the roots going all the way down to the ground.

Such is the strength of the technology here that the space can even grow a gulmohar tree. To get rid of the cardon dioxide that the plants emit at night, the Rastogis have put a sensor in an exhaust fan so that when the plants do emit carbon dioxide, the fan gets to work.

Apart from technology, the couple also have built a house to enjoy with their two kids. "Any house should allow a family to grow," says Sonali. "Manit's parents downstairs lead a very healthy and disciplined lifestyle, so their house reflects that. Our house is always full of kids and our friends and our space is designed that way. For instance, every Friday is kids' movie night for which there are always lots of kids."

There are shelves all over the house to accommodate the couple's love of books. A bed and table stand on the patio; the kids use the bed whenever they feel like being outside, sometimes even sleeping there, and breakfast is eaten at the table throughout the year.

The dining table on the first floor has two large benches at each end, apart from chairs that are placed lengthwise to accommodate a larger number of people, because the Rastogis have friends over all the time for meals "" despite their long working day and constant travelling.

All the windows in the house, and there are many of them, face the trees of the locality. A heated swimming pool on the second floor affords the couple another location for eating their meals. There is a centralised music system which, says Sonali, is both energy-efficient and cheaper than buying a two-in-one for each room in the house. And the house has a dual rainwater harvesting system as well.

That good design and environmentally friendly construction need not be mutually exclusive is probably the most important lesson to take from the Rastogi residence. Another lesson is that environmentally friendly design doesn't need to resort to cliches like exposed brick and glass-free exteriors.

But, most notably, the house stands for bringing together design and environmentally responsible and appropriate use of technology. Sonali's parting shot was, "Technology is the call of the day." Who can argue with that?