MEGHANA KULKARNI

ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING, INTERIORS

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CHAUDHARI HOUSE

Project: Residence in Baner

Project Built up area: 170 sq.m.

Contractor: Hrishikesh Kanitkar

Design team: Pooja and Meghana

Clients: Priya and Kamalakar.

This project has been a story of aspirations for us, for the clients, for the contractor, for the liasoning agent, and for the entire team who made this happen.This plot was in a prime locality but was riddled with many riders related to setbacks, commercial use, road proposal, gunthewari etc. We discovered these after doing a few alterations of design. The clients had a genuinely tight budget and they had actually come to us for a feasibility study wondering if it was worth investing in building a house. So as architects we have hand-held this project and made it happen while we built a team who were as spirited as us. We had to reverse calculate based on the budget and ensure that the design already minimised the cost.

The clients were very keen on a craft oriented,  sloping roof house reminiscent of Konkani houses in which spaces will be cosy, and livable. While we explored many natural building materials, the budgets, maintenance and practicality aspects brought us down to using an rcc framed structure with infill walls. Since the floor plate was small, the  external walls were the primary elements to be made. These were made in 9” walls instead of 6”.

The house cantilevers out in all directions on the first floor which necessitated using steel / rcc and made us move away from using denser/heavier materials like mud. A good contracting team at site supported our adamant views on using exposed concrete, exposed brickwork and a a whole list of solutions for simplifying the material palette. In this house the standard contracting teams were trained for this different approach of keeping every built form without ‘touch up’. We succeeded to some level, but it is finally a mindset change which will only happen gradually.

The design evolved over time as our clients also started seeing the built form and tastes changed from vernacular to dust free and maintenance free.

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HOUSE IN THE HILLS

Project: Weekend residence at Khanapur.

Project Floor area 90 sq.m.

Contractor: Kedar Deokule

Design team: Pooja, Meghana, Sanjay, Tauseef, Sanjushree

Clients: Dr. Abhijit Ranjekar.

The half-acre contoured site is a quiet and breezy place with an ancient fort towering on one side and views of farms and deciduous foliage on other sides. A stream runs along the north boundary of the site. Our client grows vegetables and local fruit trees on this little piece of land. This small house is designed for him to spend time with family and friends on weekends.

The brief was simple- Create a living space for a small family or for a larger gathering for all age groups of people. We added to the program a semi open deck and a covered terrace which ensured good use of the house during torrential rains as well as hot summers.

There existed a retaining wall on site and a beautiful teak tree. We located the house to tightly fit in the corner beyond the teak tree such that the foreground towards the house is maximised. The deck gets a clear view of the surrounds. The corbelled load-bearing brick walls allow for a larger cover on the upper terrace. Openings frame the view of Sinhgad fort which is a beautiful historical landmark. The terrace was also planned to be staggered such that it can be enclosed in the future to create a second space with its own toilet. However small a project, the service requirements are always important, for which we provided a service slab which carried the water tanks and solar PV provisions. The roof floats between the parallel walls thus keeping the east west vista open for sweeping wind.

Building materials:

The foundation was built in plum concrete and RCC. The superstructure was built in locally available red brick. An RCC slab was simply supported on the parallel load-bearing walls. The roof structure was made in MS tube sections and corrugated GI sheet. Teracotta clay tiles were used for the internal flooring, Shahbad stone was used for the deck floor and Kadappa stone was used as staircase treads. Doors and windows were made in powder coated GI sections. External weather shades were made with cement fibre sheet.

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PASHAN HOUSE

Project: Duplex apartment redesign.

Contractor: H A Kanitkar and Co.

Design team: Pooja, Meghana, Mandar, and Priya, Sanjushree, Sanjay

Clients: Yashodhan and Swati.

This 240 sq. m duplex apartment has a fantastic view and we wanted to respect it by keeping the footprint of our presence low and muted. We wished to make a house which will not be a flashy display piece, but a comfortable home for our clients. Natural light, no false ceilings, and an Indian yellow kota stone floor brings about the charming warmth of this house. Client’s old wood furniture was used and the interiors were meticulously planned around these units. A lot of wood from their old house was also re-purposed. The beautiful floor and civil work was executed by Hrishikesh Kanitkar’s able team, the woodwork and interior finishes were executed by Shrishti interior’s team. Kitchen Decor provided the kitchen which was specifically designed for utilising traditional Indian stone & brass equipment, as well as modern electrical gadgets. Lights were chosen to be with bulbs such that they are easy to replace as compared to LED fittings. Spaces were kept large and open for the flexibility of bringing in loose furniture.Cross ventilation was maintained in all rooms. Over lighting and fancy lighting was avoided.

As architects we were trusted by our clients to be involved right from selecting the apartment. Their art and furniture collections were accommodated and became the primary line in the brief even while selecting the place. We have designed spaces which reflect every desire and dream collected over decades by our clients.

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M+P ARCHITECTS COLLABORATIVE

I have been working in collaboration with my friend Pooja Chaphalkar since 2014 and our firm is called M+P Architects Collaborative. Do check out my firm’s new website (https://mplusp.in/) to read more about us, our design philosophy and work. We are a Pune based architecture and interiors firm with a presence across India.

I will keep sharing new projects on this blog for record. It can be accessed using the link mkarc.tumblr.com. Looking forward to working on and sharing more exciting projects with you!

M+P Architects Collaborative are on Instagram and linkedin too. Do follow or drop us a message if you have any queries or comments.

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SHETE HOUSE

Project: Apartments redesign at Ranjangao.

Project Floor area 250 sq.m.

Contractor: H A Kanitkar and Co.

Design team: Pooja, Meghana, Mandar Athavle, and Priya Nakhate

Clients: Gajendra Shete.

The project was about redesigning a 3 floor high building which flanked a busy highway and was among the only 3 tall buildings in the vicinity. It was in the village of Ranjangaon which is a Grampanchayat town on Pune-Ahmednagar highway. The place is known for its Ashtavinayak Ganesh temple- one of the eight revered temples of Ganesh. It is also known for a large Industrial cluster with the presence of many German and Italian manufacturing companies.

The original building:

The 2 residential apartments we designed overlook the temple, the village, the highway, and the industrial cluster.

The place has a striking context in the form of the pilgrimage centre and neighbouring buildings built without side setbacks, reflecting older village planning.

Our project was primarily designed for Mrs. Shete, a 74 yr old self-made teacher from the village who owned and managed the building. We designed one apartment for her and one for her son Gajendra Shete, who was our point of contact even while he worked and stayed in the US. The design was meant to be answerable to an urban lifestyle, accessibility concerns, bed and breakfast arrangement, and contextual issues of noise, dust, privacy etc.

The initial brief involved a redesign of the entire building which had a set of commercial activity tenants like a bank, dental clinic and shops which were operational. We worked on the brief and convinced our clients to minimise the intervention for the entire building to the building façade only. We restricted the material usage to brick, plaster, paint and readily available MS sections. In such far-flung towns it is always beneficial to work with unskilled or semiskilled labour because they are the ones who finally help maintain and support the building in the long run. Hence the design was also made in readily available basic materials easy for maintenance, replacements and additions.

The building abuts a small 4m wide lane on the east side and just half a metre gap from the neighbouring building on the west. We kept the living quarters in the central portion of the house giving some open space on three sides. The service areas- toilets, utilities were all planned along the western façade. Since the building is situated along the highway, there’s constant noise and dust coming into the building. By pushing all living areas into the centre with a screen along the façade of Mrs. Shete’s apartment floor, a buffer space was created to reduce the noise, dust and heat and to give some much-needed privacy to the apartment. The screen on the façade ensures that adequate light and breeze percolates in to the main areas whilst maintaining privacy.

The upper floor was planned as a serviced apartment with a living space, pantry, a bedroom with an attached toilet. This was recessed inside to provide a buffer and privacy from the highway creating a partly covered open terrace with further visual privacy provided by plantation along the edges of the South and East open spaces.  Given the abundance of sunlight, the toilets and lobbies are naturally lit with skylights without any need for artificial lighting during the daytime. The living spaces are also adequately lit naturally.

The finishes were kept as natural and simple as possible. Polished natural Kota stone was used for the internal areas whereas a combination of Leather finished Kota and Shahabad stones were used in the open spaces. The 3 sided buffer space gives the feel of a village home with its aangan. It provides a ground and sky connection that an apartment otherwise lacks. Minimal inbuilt furniture was proposed keeping in mind that the end user had their own choice and the end use may also change with time.

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SHRIVASTAVA HOUSE

Project: Residence at Khandwa, MP

Design team: Pooja and Meghana

Structural consultant: Himanshu Tulpule.

Client: Dr. Vishal Shrivastava.

Planned as a residence for a family of doctors in the central Indian town of Khandwa, it has been designed for the needs of a growing family with consideration to the local lifestyle, climate, material availability and keeping in mind the local flavour of Khandwa. 

The client- Dr. Shrivastava wanted very modern house in this small, but important town. Having explored Khandwa and surroundings during the first visit, we decided to incorporate certain elements of local traditional architecture like the brickwork patters and an inward looking plan. The Climate being hot and arid, we have tried to keep most of the major living areas towards the north and east, providing deep windows/overhangs for shading and using the shading provided by existing buildings on site to keep the private areas cool.

A secondary access has been provided at the North west corner for the home-clinic that has been planned for the Senior Dr. Shrivastava to be used as his consulting clinic.

The structure is predominantly load bearing with only 3 RCC columns taken to support the front cantilever of the building. The RCC floor slab and beams are supported on 9″ fly ash brick walls. Good quality burnt bricks weren’t available locally so we sourced fly ash bricks from Bhusaval, which is only 130 kms away from Khandwa. 

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SALBAN - KANHA

Project: Residence at Kanha

Floor area: 500 sq.m.

Design team: Pooja and Meghana

Structural consultant: Himanshu Tulpule and associates.

Client: Sheema and Anirudh Mukerjee.

The project is a 5000 sq. ft. load bearing bungalow. Aim was to use minimum RCC, provide large covered verandahs using all the locally available material, expertise and labour.

Foundation and walls in locally available brick with mud mortar. The soil required was acquired from the site itself which was tested.

Roofing in locally available seasoned Sal wood, waterproof plywood boarding and clay tiles.

The residence is designed keeping in mind the local climate and context, a tight budget and a quirky colonial flavour. The photos you see here are from during and after completion.

Sheema and Anirudh have moved there permanently and have opened their house for guests looking for a cozy forest experience. For bookings, click here.

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PRODIGITAS

Project: Office interiors

Location: Baner

Client: Prodigitas India Pvt. Ltd.

Floor area: 65 sq.m.

Design team: Pooja and Meghana 

The clients approached us to design an office for their digital marketing company called Prodigitas India Pvt. Ltd. Their requirement was to have a flexible space as their usage was not defined as cubicles, individual desktops, reception areas, or other such formal spaces. The nature of their work makes the office paperless and requires very little equipment to function. They wanted the office to be ready in a month.

With such a brief, we kept divisions to a minimum and a third of the floor space as the common work area with two large work tables in MS supports and engineered wood sheets. One cabin is used by the directors or as a common meeting room with the smallest soundproof cubicle being the calling space. The balcony overlooking some trees is used as a lunch and break space

Embellishments were kept to the minimum and we have tried to keep the design as a pure derivative of functional requirement. Instead of providing a false ceiling, the existing services are kept exposed to give some openness and proportion to the volume. Air conditioning is only required during summer months and the office gets sufficient ventilation and is shaded from direct radiation because of the balcony. Laminated wood flooring was used for floor carpeting. The space is designed to be naturally lit with minimum artificial lighting which may be required on dull cloudy days, like on the day these pictures were taken.

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TAANASA

Project: Residence at Sonale Village

Area: 400 sq.m.

Design team: Meghana Kulkarni

Structural Consultant: Mahesh Thakare

Client: Atul and Geetanjali Kulkarni

I designed this residence at the tribal village of Sonale village in 2012. The project was completed by early 2014. Recently took photos of the completed residence.

The residence was designed keeping the local climate - which is hot and humid and the local village context in mind. The major construction materials- brick and stone were sourced locally . The structure is mostly load bearing with only 3 columns for the stilt area.

The residence is built on a small plateau with a partial slope. The main house sits on one level while an open stilt is formed under the living area and one bedroom. This space is used for workshops  and other activities along with a rest room for helpers.

The roof is a fabricated steel structure with internal boarding and mangalore tiles.

We have taken a central open courtyard around which all the main spaces are located. The living room opens up into the verandah and the courtyard giving the feel of a larger space as the requirement was to hold a large number of people in that space for various activities.

The verandah looking into the courtyard acts as a passage between the living room, bedrooms and kitchen and dining area. The rooms have a tall height and ventilators at higher levels so the lower living areas remain cooler.

A library/audio visual room has been placed over the bedroom toilets with a dormer in the roof for a clear headroom. The access to this room is from a stairway in the living room.

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KINDERGARTEN

Project: Kindergarten design at Baner, Pune

Area: 800 sq. m.

Design team: Pooja and Meghana

Structural Consultant: Himanshu Tulpule.

Client: Walnut education

Walnut Education Group approached us to re-design an existing school where 4 large classrooms were to be converted into 5 smaller ones for kindergarten classes. The partition walls have inbuilt storage and vaults for children to sit under. Tile mosaic work used in the vaults and flooring where the older walls were demolished and the existing flooring was kept intact.

The walls were kept white so as to highlight the furniture, teaching aids, toys and children’s drawings and crafts. The brick wall was left un-plastered for it’s texture’s visual and tactile quality.

These are some drawings and views planned along with the photos of the project before and after completion. The school hasn’t started running to it’s full capacity yet.

Project designed in collaboration with Pooja Chaphalkar (poojachaphalkar.in)

Project status: under construction

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PATHAK’S RESIDENCE

Project: Apartment interiors, Rohan Kritika, Sinhgad road

Floor area: 65 Sq.m.

Clients: Mr. and Mrs. Pathak

Architects: Meghana and Pooja

The Pathaks came to us to get their apartment designed with a practical yet sustainable resource conscious approach. The apartment was to be rented out, which meant that the end user was unknown. We looked at sustainability in this project in the form of minimum intervention. We overlapped 3 programs:

a) Pathaks themselves using the apartment.

b) Unknown family staying on rent.

c) The apartment being used for music programs, book exhibitions, seminars, cooking sessions, resource centre.

In a 650 sq.ft. apartment when we overlap such mixed use the designer's scope becomes tougher. The place had to feel good, look good and yet there was very little scope for any physical contribution to be made. Most of the space was simply left empty for double beds, chairs, floor mats to be placed later. Every chair, floor mat, double bed, tambora, peti, tabla, projector screen was drawn, planned and accounted for as a future addition. A deliberate attempt to keep the space empty was made with basic necessities in mind. the only specific intervention we needed was to carve out an additional window between the entrance lobby and the kitchen for visual connectivity and ventilation and a pergola to get a sense of enclosure to the lobby space which also acts as an additional security grill.

We were thankful that the apartment scheme was quite well thought of by the Bangalore based architecture firm- Mindspace. In the age of ready furniture, wallpapers, pinterest inspired decors, there is soon going to be little for interior designers to contribute to. We acknowledge this and believe that appropriate planning will always lead to good spaces which will efficiently evolve with time.

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HEIMATEC INDIA

Project: Office interiors.

Client: Heimatec India Pvt Ltd, Pune.

Floor area: 50 sq.m.

Design team: Pooja and Meghana

The existing office of Heimatec India was on the low height mezzanine level of their shop floor in an old industrial building complex. They approached us with a requirement of replanning the office for additional workstations and bigger conference area.

We needed to extend the mezzanine floor and change the existing layout completely. One single partition separated the Director’s cabin and conference area from the main work space. This work space organisation has been split into two clusters- Engineering and accounts section. The partitions were kept at a heigh of 4′ to give a continuity of space in the otherwise small volume. The work-desks were custom made with the table tops and supports being engineered wood sheets and the 4′ high partitions in ply and MDF with paint finish with soft-boards. Some of the partition materials from the earlier layout was kept and re-used for the new layout. This being a small area with no view to the outside, we added some brightness with the partition wall colour. The floor carpeting is done with vinyl sports floor carpeting over the floor boarding. It was challenging time bound project in terms of space planning and budget management.

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DAY ACTIVITY CENTRE

Project: Masterplan, landscape and project feasibility for a day activity centre at Sutarwadi, Kundalika

Site area: 1 acre

Design team: Pooja and Meghana

Activity: Recreation and group day activities.

Client: Foliage

The brief was to create a day activity centre for groups of people interested in river rafting. Kundalika river is a popular destination for rafting and this activity nearby would have all the facilitates required before and after the activity.

Another main purpose was to create areas where groups could spend an entire day with a possibility of camping on the site itself.

The site is a 1 acre land sloping towards the east. The site has a large long structure which used to be a poultry farm earlier. This sturdy brick and steel structure was to house the main covered activity area while other blocks were planned around it.

The main addition to the site was a large toilet block away from the main building which housed showers and changing rooms as well.

view of the site:

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WADEKAR RESIDENCE

Project: Apartment redesign at Nigdi.

Project Floor area 150 sq.m.

Contractors: Mr. Khachne, Dinesh Sharma

Design team: Pooja and Meghana, Darshana, Mandar, Rashmi, Saniya

Clients: Manasi and Jayesh Wadekar.

Manasi and Jayesh were residing with their family on the lower floor of a two storied bungalow where the upper floor had an independent access and was let out to paying guests. They approached us to redesign the entire upper floor for the two of them to shift upstairs. 

Half the battle was won by cracking the layout to accommodate a beautiful central terrace and dining space. Getting a compact kitchen and a neat little study space carved out from the constraints of the existing structure was another achievement. Using Jaiselmer stone for flooring binds the apartment together and responds beautifully to the abundant natural light that play. The civil-electrical and plumbing work itself took a year to complete because we almost rebuilt the entire apartment. Carpentry and finishing brought out the charm of having lots of built in storages, clean spaces, efficient kitchen. The final run was taken up by the clients who bought up some good ready units which went well with the spaces we had created.

This is one project where as architects we made a few mistakes, and Jayesh and Manasi as clients have kept us on our toes . I cannot thank them enough for being the alert, sharp, just, and observant people that they are. I believe we worked well as team to fight all the battles of changing contractors, changing costs, introduction of GST,  a long time-span, and a combination of Pune and Nigdi suppliers.

The project cost came to approximately ₹22 lakhs

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KALE HOUSE

Project: Apartment replanning and renovation, Bhosale Nagar, Pune.

Clients: Ashwini and Umesh Kale.

Area: 55 sq. m.

Design team: Meghana and Pooja, Mandar Athavale

Ashwini and Umesh Kale bought a small one bedroom apartment which they wanted us to renovate. They approached us with a requirement of carving out an additional space for their teenage son.

The main exercise was the replan and refurbish the old apartment for their present requirements. The existing old kitchen was divided into two by a light weight partition to carve out a room for their son and a compact but efficient kitchen. 

The entrance to the toilet area and wash basin has been taken from the central lobby. The Toilet wall has been moved towards the living to carve out a full compact toilet and one WC area along with a common wash basin area.

The entire floor was redone in off white matt vitrified tiles. The electrical wiring was changed completely and concealed in the walls.  The layout was planned for loose furniture which they were going to bring from their old house.

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MONSOON HOUSE

Project: Residence at Magarpatta city, Pune

Floor area: 400 sq.m.

Design team: Pooja and Meghana

Client: Mr. Amit Sharma

A house for an NRI family.

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ROHAL LEHER

Project: Apartment interiors

Area: 140 sq. m.

Clients: Sipral and Amit Deghawekar

Architects: Meghana and Pooja

An apartment in Rohan builder’s scheme - Leher was to be replanned. The scheme is airy and gets in a lot of light. So the brief was to retain those quality and make the space more utilitarian with a lot of hidden storage and ledge space. The family likes colour and brightness and the visual feel of wood. Some masonry changes were also planned.