© Ar Hamid MM

(Ar Hamid MM)

The Context

不仅仅是低预算，这座房子是意识到建筑不需要昂贵和全新的结果。随着全球化的到来，当思想和信息仅仅是一击之遥，然后是越来越多的观众跌落到社会的不同阶层时，好建筑的形象在很大程度上就被定型了。在像印度这样的发展中国家，这是植根于这样一种观念，即有一种体系结构代表着用户的经济状况，尤其是在住宅方面，每个人都想要一个“看上去富裕而昂贵的房子”。和其他地方一样，这也导致喀拉拉邦的住宅建筑逐渐偏离了使用当地的材料、技术，从而在适当的时候损害了气候反应能力、能源效率等方面。在中东和欧洲盛行的那种建筑，也成为了决定他们品味的一种影响力。在那里，绝大多数的Keralites人都在那里工作。无论采用什么样的风格，富裕阶层都有特权在自己的住宅里购买空调、自动化系统，但其他住在成本更低、有时规模更小的大型豪宅里的人则不会。他们抱怨说，他们的家庭内部缺乏舒适；当他们把大部分积蓄花在自己身上时，里面太热了，因此他们不得不在梦想成真的家庭中不快乐。

More than being low budget, this house is the outcome of a realization that architecture need not be expensive and brand new. In the wake of globalization, when ideas and information are just a click away and are followed by a larger audience falling to different layers of the society, the image of what is good architecture has been stereotyped to a major extent. In developing countries like India, this is rooted in a notion that there is a certain kind of architecture that represents the financial status of the user especially in the case of residences where mostly everyone wants a home that ‘looks’ rich and expensive. Like elsewhere, this has caused residential architecture in Kerala too, to slowly drift away from using the vernacular materials, techniques and thus compromising aspects such as climatic responsiveness, energy efficiency in the due course. The kind of architecture prevailing in the Middle East and Europe where a good majority of Keralites work has also become an influence in defining their taste. Whatever be the style used, the affluent class has the privilege to afford air conditioned, automated systems in their residences, but the rest who lives in the cheaper ,at times smaller scale replicas of those huge mansions don’t. They complain that there is a lack of comfort inside their homes; it’s too hot inside them while they have spent a lion’s share of their savings for them and thus are forced to stay unhappy in their dream-come- true homes.

© Ar Hamid MM

(Ar Hamid MM)

他们的目的是让人们认识到拥有真实的建筑而不是看起来相似的建筑的重要性。这并不是说富人和穷人的建筑应该有区别，这里的要点是，无论社会地位如何，住宅建筑都应使用简约的语言，并应对场地、气候、土生土长的建筑材料和最终用户等特定环境的各个方面作出反应。

The attempt was to create awareness on the importance of having true- to-self buildings rather than look alike ones. Not that there should be distinction in architecture  for the rich and the poor, the point here is that, whatever be the social status, residential  architecture shall speak the language of simplicity and shall respond to the aspects of the given context of site, climate, vernacular building materials and the end user.

在这里，房子被巧妙地安置在一种环境中，周围环绕着那些与前面提到的刻板印象相一致的住宅，在橡胶种植园的倾斜景观上。为了在建筑物和过路人之间建立对话，这座房子被安置在离道路更近的地方，尽管场地足够大，可以提供充足的正面。虽然在农村的设置，相当多的交通通过前面的道路连接几个相邻的村庄，提供了大量的能见度为建筑物。但是这里有趣的部分是决定如何利用这个可见性以及其他主要的关注点。在一系列所谓的“昂贵的”豪宅中，谦逊而简单的回家是整个过程中的一个关键点，其余的只是依循；没有损害客户的要求，但并不真正表明他的经济状况。

Here, the house is subtly placed in a setting where it is surrounded by the kinds of residences which fall to the stereotypes mentioned earlier, over a sloping landscape in a rubber plantation. As part of the deliberate effort to create a dialogue between the building and its passerby’s, the house has been placed closer to the road despite the site being large enough to offer ample frontage. Though rural in setting, considerable traffic passes through the road in the front which connects several adjoining villages offering significant amount of visibility for the building. But the interesting part here was to decide on how to make use of this visibility along with the other primary concerns. To go with a modest, simple looking home amidst an array of the so called ‘expensive looking’ mansions was a crucial point in the whole process and the rest just followed; without compromising the requirements of the client, but not really  an indication of his financial status

© Ar Hamid MM

(Ar Hamid MM)

作为一名退休军官的客户，他想要的只是一个简单而和平的家，由他的妻子和四个女儿组成，住在他祖传的土地上。同时，必须有两个人住，只有他和他的妻子，还有一家人的房子，因为他的女儿们住在遥远的地方，她们偶尔回家。

All that the client, a retired army officer wanted was a simple and peaceful home for his family comprising of his wife and four daughters in his ancestral land. At the same time it had to be house for two: he and his wife alone, and a house for whole of the family, for his daughters are settled at far off places and they come home occasionally.