THE WEEKEND LOUNGE
AHMEDABAD, 2024
The design of The Weekend Lounge borrows from local vernacular built forms to create a contemporary pavilion featuring a stone and glass facade with a gabled roof form. Located on the outskirts of the bustling city of Ahmedabad, India, The Weekend Lounge, essentially a pavilion, offers a natural oasis to its urban users.
The clients wanted a place to unwind, a place not so far away from the city and yet disconnected with everything else but nature, a place to host family and friends, a place as a recess from the daily life of urban India. As a reference point, the design considered the agrarian context of the surrounding farmlands and the vernacular huts used by farmers as a respite from the scorching sun of western India's hot and arid climate. .
The rectangular single-story pavilion with its gable roof is hidden from the approach road. It sits inconspicuously amidst the farmland, comprising a natural pond and indigenous flora and fauna. The walls are clad in sandblasted local sandstone of an earthy tonality, and the roof is covered in white insulated metal panels. The ground adjoining the pavilion rolls gently whilst large slabs of red sandstone offer an inviting approach to the entrance verandah of the pavilion.
Inside the pavilion, the main space- the lounge comprises of glass walls on three sides, thereby blurring the boundaries between inside and outside. The fourth wall, clad in stone, receives a play of light and shadow throughout the day. The structural steel members of the gabled roof, inspired by the wooden structure of the hut, are left exposed, expressing its order and rhythm in space to which the patterns of the honed finish black granite respond. The spatial experience is that of lightness.
At the far end of the pavilion, the service spaces are hidden behind a stone-clad wall with wood panel inserts, abstractly referencing the art of wall decorations in vernacular huts. The furniture and upholstery comprise of natural wood finishes and earthy neutral colours.
Photographer: Umang Shah
