Projects – Page 8 – akshay kaul and associates

Civil lines

As you enter the gate is a water fall and a screen of plants that separates the garden and the outside world. The sound of water directs the people towards the pathway leading to the house – you pause here and then turn to see a sculpture sitting there waiting for you. As you walk along the path, sound of overflow from the pool directs you to the house. The stone lattice screens the pool from the walkway yet the lattice teases you to find out what is behind. The screens, pathway, light lanterns are all in sand stone.

Nirula Farm

Pahalgam Club

Ravi Nanda Farm

This is a farm house where people live as a joint family. The house and landscape followed every possible principle in Vastu Shastra. We integrated our environmental concerns within those principles. We brought into the gardens a pallete of plants that helped to restore the ecological cycle nourish the soil, bring back insect life, butterflies, birds, night insects and more. We fixed the soil further by sending back every drop of water into the ground to recharge the replenishing water cycle. We kept only a small part as turf for occasional parties and a large part of the gardens as agrarian landscape, for herbs and plants that are found in folk and traditional medicine. We saved all existing trees even though we had to worked with altered grade due to Vastu.

Vineet Sethi Farm

Spread on 2.5 acres this project came to us with earlier interventions of two landscape architects. So we had a more predetermined landscape in which we had to modify certain elements,
create new gardens and planting changes through addition and alteration in existing pallette. The lawns were an existing part of landscape and through planting we created spatial definition and added character to the front and rear garden. In addition four smaller garden were created each with a distinct character including the arrival court sculptures inspired by Henry Moore.

Kamal Poddar Residence

The single-family home is in a semi- arid region near Delhi, India in a gated development of varying size. This site is 2100sq m roughly half an acre lot at the end of the cul-de-sac with pre-determined building height and open space regulation. The building is placed approximately in the centre and has open space on four sides. The landscape is designed in a way to integrate the building utilities like underground copper pipes below the West/Front lawn to cool the building. The irrigation of the lawn supports in this process. The pathways, drive ways and front yard have gravel as finish so that utility chambers and underground pipeline that run below them can be easily maintained without disturbing the landscape. Rainwater recharge system is also integrated with pathways and the landscape in all the four open spaces. Vegetation is primarily conceived to provide for every day needs of the house hold; flowers and holy basil for morning prayers, herbs for cooking, fruit trees that grow in the region, fragrant shrubs, flowering trees for pollination and shade.

Sadika Farm House

This is a residential project on an one acre lot with a joint family already living on it. The client wanted us to redesign the existing landscape with issues of water accumulation in the norther part of site, grey water discharge directly and its accumulation, a landscape without any character. They wanted a landscape that they would like to use – where the father and son would walk every morning or night and discuss work and and life. The earlier landscape had existing trees many of which we did not like but as is with any project we typically do not remove any tree. So we worked with the limitation of existing structure of the earlier landscape and enhanced it . The landscape celebrates and integrates rainwater harvesting and solves all issues of drainage and recharges every drop of water that falls in the garden. Waste water is biologically treated now from the kitchen and the septic tank and reuses in the agrarian landscape. With stone crafts people to bring the stone crafts into the Indian Landscape as paving material, as screens/ jallis, and in various other ways in the landscape, area for the lawn is minimized, naturalized or native shrubs are planted, lighting form an important part of the landscape. The clients enjoy and use the landscape and the gardens more than ever before and every member of the house finds a way to partake with it. The children have put the tables against the windows and now the clients don’t want to do anything in the interiors which will “spoil the view of the gardens from inside”. In the second phase the client wanted us to do the interiors to keep the ‘sacred’ experience of landscape undisturbed.

Krishna Arup Residence

As I have grown on the banks of a monsoon streams and experienced the brooklets, streams, rivers and lakes in my home town Kashmir we bring in a natural love and poetics of water in all over projects including this one. Rainwater Harvesting and Storm Water Management were the guiding principles for design. Each drop of water is harvested and eventually finds its way into a detention pond filled with aquatics. The overflow from which is connected to recharge the bore well. In this garden we brought in for the first time in our Northern Indian climates plants that find mention in ‘ayurveda’.

Anuradha Farm

The brief for this project was to design a landscape on a two and a half acre lot on outskirt of the city for renting out the large house. The brief meant that it would be a generic client head of a corporate or a
diplomat or an ex-pat. Such building and gardens are designed on a low budget. The gardens however were designed keeping in view our environmental concerns which meant addressing issues of water
conservation, bio-diversity, wildlife issues and restoring the ecology in what ever possible way within the constraints of time and money. The project was completed in 2006 and we were able to photograph it again in 2008. However, with changing tenants – the character of landscape changes depending on how much care the tenant takes of the gardens.

Raas Haveli

Raas Jodhpur, India is a luxury boutique hotel in the old city of Jodhpur, which features 17th and 18th century period structures that have been restored using traditional crafts and materials. New structures and landscape gardens are designed to provide visitors with a sensual contemporary experience. The landscape responds to the historic city and celebrates the view of the fort in a modern and authentic manner without aping the past.

The Master Plan is contemporary and so are the resulting forms and spaces in the garden with craftsmanship integrated and adopted in a contemporary language. The gardens and architecture are constantly in a seamless dialogue. The gardens can be experienced from every guest room and in a unique manner while moving from one space to another. Each of these gardens varies in its character and has been choreographed into a unique symphony.

Issues of environment are addressed even in these small scale gardens. Rainwater harvesting is integrated in garden design and also most of the water that is used to irrigate the gardens is from the treated waste water. Sand stone which is available locally around Jodhpur and materials with low embodied energy are used in the landscape. Local sand stone has been used for the exterior of the traditional and new structures in the project and also in the landscape. However, the stone expresses itself in the landscape in myriad ways in a contemporary manner through the interplay of size, texture and relief.

Planting in this urban resort was a challenge because of the conflict with sight lines and the need to constantly preserve the view of the fort from the guest rooms and the gardens. Plant selection and location was done very carefully. Native trees and some of the native ones from the region are added where ever possible and naturalized indigenous shrubs have been planted in the garden. A small garden with herbs and fruits has been planted that is used in the kitchen. Aquatic garden is added that brings the birds and adds a unique character to the garden. Reeds are planted in the aquatic garden that provides privacy to the swimming pool area.

In the main court at the entrance a small garden with different varieties of jasmine are planted that bloom from time to time and sometimes in different times of the year. As one enters the garden the perfume and also predominantly white flowers draws the senses inward and has a magical effect on the guests. The trees and shrubs with profuse white flowering attracts different insects, bees, birds, smaller animals into the garden during the day and at night which was one of the objective of the landscape design.

The garden picks up reference and very subtly addresses historicity of water in the most contemporary manner. Water is used to highlight the landscape as channels or small troughs or cascade in this arid landscape. Poetry in water is expressed as floating pavilion and the floating garden At night the landscape transforms as the water and gardens elements, niches and the fort light up to create a sensual poetry.