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The "Cube" is a house designed by Ganesh Ganapathy, built in a suburb of Delhi, India.
Photo: Ganesh Ganapathy
An aerial view of the Cube during construction.
Photo: Ganesh Ganapathy
Show House Cubed
In Gurgaon, India, a fast-growing suburb of Delhi, an unusual house has just been erected. Designed by architect Ganesh Ganapathy, the building is a glass cube seemingly balanced on one vertex. Its uniqueness is admired by neighbors and passers-by, but working out the details of fitting a functional, stable house into such a form proved a formidable challenge.
The owners, the Mahatta family, participated in, and indeed insisted on, the challenges of such an attention-grabbing form. They own the locally prominent construction firm, Mahatta Towers Pvt. Ltd., and they wanted the structure to boost the visibility of their company's capabilities.
Show House Cubed
continued
The architect - principal of the firm Stonehenge in New Delhi - and his clients spent nine months discussing numerous options for the house, including conventional residential forms. Then they realized they were interested in regular geometrical forms. An early design proposal involved collages of stacked cubes. Then, Ganapathy realized a single perfect cube would be still more distinctive. "And to bring out further dynamism to the structure, I made it stand on one vertex with the other lined vertically opposite."
Making the House a Home
The house, as recently constructed, measures 35.25 feet (10.74 meters) on each side. It has three main floors, with a terrace level above and a water storage tank at the apex, plus a large basement for office and storage space. The skin is glass framed with aluminum, which also serves to accentuate the shape.
Fitting a family residence into such a form was no easy feat. The architect took six months to convert the form into practical spaces and another three months to get the plans approved by local building authorities who had serious concerns about the unusual design's feasibility.
Ganapathy placed the circulation core at the center and made it the primary support structure. This stair core is triangular in plan and has reinforced concrete walls. The ground floor, the entrance lobby, is nothing but this core. Upper stories have larger floor areas. The relatively small ground floor also leaves room for another essential client requirement, on-site parking.
The differing perimeter shapes of the upper floors were determined by their level and the outer shell of the cube. The architect's original intention was that the floor slabs would cantilever from the central core, but this ultimately proved impractical. Seismic resistance required tie-beams from floor to floor at the perimeter to reduce deflection of the slabs at their farthest edges. The basement walls provided additional stability.
Because the structure was so unusual, it took some creative interpretation of the local building code to come up with acceptable height limitations. On a residential plot of this size (50 by 100 feet, or 15 by 30 meters) the maximum permissible height is normally 43 feet (13 meters). The architect was able to make the peak of the cube reach as high as 54 feet (16.5 meters) by taking advantage of code exceptions for "sloped roofs" and for water tanks.
The interior rooms took unusual shapes to conform to the confines of the cube, which varied for each level. But in exchange for this spatial interest, the owners paid a penalty in a reduced floor space on the three main floors (2850 square feet, or 265 square meters) compared to what they might have had (3670 square feet, or 341 square meters) if the same sized cube had been placed flat.
The owners will also pay a premium for all that glazing, which they chose because they wanted to achieve a modern look. They will combat tropical temperatures with considerable air-conditioning, though solar heat gain will be somewhat lessened by the reflectiveness of the glass.
However, there don't appear to be many complaints. The owners are delighted with their new house, and the architect is grateful that they gave him the freedom to experiment.
Project Credits
Architect: Ganesh Ganapathy, Stonehenge, New Delhi.
Structural engineer: S.S. Beniwal, Shiv Consultants, New Delhi.
Constructor: Mahatta Towers Pvt. Ltd.
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Excessive formalism without consideration of the environmental context. . .
a structural gymnastics. . .
.H.
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The "Cube" is a house designed by Ganesh Ganapathy, built in a suburb of Delhi, India.
Photo: Ganesh Ganapathy
The Cube during construction.
Photo: Ganesh Ganapathy
The Cube during construction.
Photo: Ganesh Ganapathy
Section through the Cube.
Image: Ganesh Ganapathy
The Cube, ground floor plan.
Image: Ganesh Ganapathy
The Cube, main floor plan.
Image: Ganesh Ganapathy
The Cube, upper floor plan.
Image: Ganesh Ganapathy
A more conventional neighborhood reflected in the Cube's glazed surface.
Photo: Ganesh Ganapathy
Click on thumbnail images
to view full-size pictures.
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