I think it's time, Caroline, to go and see how the other half live.
Talk about, "Welcome to my humble abode!"
Cor. That is a whole lot of house!
He's Piers Taylor, an award-winning architect.
I mean, the depth of this wall!
It's...four foot thick! After you, my lord.
And she's Caroline Quentin,
acclaimed actress and passionate property developer.
This house has the perfect ratio of bedrooms to swimming pools.
We've been given the keys to some of the most incredible houses in the world.
If we were left alone here for any amount of time,
I have a feeling... We would ruin this house!
To discover the design innovation, passion,
and endurance needed to transform architectural vision into an extraordinary home.
Look! I'm dumbstruck!
We're travelling the globe!
Meeting architects and owners to explore how their daring homes respond
uniquely to local landscape, climate and culture.
I think this is probably the greatest house I've ever been in.
Whether it's battling the elements to construct a dream home on dramatic
Scandinavian terrain...
The architect was nervous that things would go wrong.
He couldn't bear to look at it.
..pushing the boundaries of European experimentation...
I think that's it!I think it is.
When I looked at the proposal in the beginning, I was almost shocked.
..celebrating craftsmanship and beauty in Asia...
We've likened this house to dripping chocolate sauce over vanilla ice cream.
..or going all-out for glamour in America.
You just do what you do best, is to create a masterpiece.
Piers! AMERICAN ACCENT: Is this too Miami?
We've arrived in Mumbai, India's most populous city.
Crazy!Yeah!
There are more billionaires here than there are in Los Angeles.
And a booming economy is driving a passion for modern architecture.
Hello?
Hi, ma'am!Hi, hi! I'm Caroline. This is Piers.
What's your name?Salman.
Salman, nice to meet you.Thank you.
But we're leaving the city...
HORNS BEEP
Because were following the smart money out of Mumbai to the peaceful
and dramatic landscapes beyond.
Where a new generation of architects are running wild.
I think this is thrilling! And I didn't expect it.
From a concrete fortress that blends ancient form with modern design...
..to a feat of architectural daring, with a visionary approach to landscape.
Experience here is identical in many ways
just to being under the trees outside.
And an idyllic riverside hideaway that makes you feel, well...
majestic!
I know this is really bad. But I've got to do it.
Maharani Quentin.
That's me.
We'll also be finding out how Indian architects have drawn on their
nation's history and craftsmanship to blaze a trail into the future.
HORNS BEEP
Gosh, I can see why people need to get out of Mumbai.
Well, hopefully we are heading away from this chaos and into the
countryside.I think we're heading into the countryside.
I'm not convinced we're heading away from the chaos.
HORNS BEEP
One thing we ARE escaping is the weather.
We've chosen to come in the dry season, because from June to September,
it's monsoon time.
When the heavens open, up to a metre of rain can fall in a single day,
bringing cities to a halt and flooding the land.
And if that's not intense enough, in the summer,
temperatures can soar to a scorching 40 degrees or higher.
I'm intrigued to find out how architects here respond passively to
such extremes of climate.
We are travelling to see a home that has to deal with some of the worst
weather in India.
It's in a mountainous region 70 km southeast of Mumbai.
We're arriving by the scenic route, and I'm not taking any chances.
HACKING I'm doing this, Piers,
because there is a danger of sleeping snakes under here and I
want to wake any snakes up.
I wondered why you brought that stick. You got your anti-venom in your backpack?
No, I wish I had, actually!
Ooh! It's quite a climb.
BIRDS CHIRP
Gosh.
I wasn't expecting that.
This imposing house is built like a fortress,
partly because the monsoon breaks right overhead.
And that tough outer shell doubles as a way to protect light and airy
interiors from the baking heat.
Perched on the edge of a rocky outcrop,
it commands views across the flatlands to the mountains beyond.
But this is no military bunker.
It's been created as a relaxing weekend home,
for a Mumbai businessman and his family.
That's pretty.
It's beautiful.Marigolds!
Wow, you could almost lie on top of that surface, couldn't you?
Aren't they lovely?Aren't they beautiful?
What a colour! Gosh, that against that blue is phenomenal!
I think this splash of floral colour is a clue that behind this tough
exterior, lies a house with real warmth.
I'm just going to get a sense of where we are, what the context is.
OK. I'm going to put the kettle on and make a cup of tea.
Oh, please. I'll call you when I'm ready.Oh, do, yeah.
I'm just curious to see how the house sits.
I think it sits right on the edge of this escarpment and somewhere out
there is a fantastic view.
But I have to say, I'm really excited about this house because,
this house might marry a real sense of the ancient with modernity.
I already like the way this courtyard
welcomes you into the house.
Now, where's that tea?
One of the great things about being allowed in other people's houses,
is if you arrive somewhere, and he can make yourself a quick cup of
tea, you immediately feel at home.
So, I'm officially now at home.
And what a home it is.
The challenge here was to build The House Of Liquid Stone on the edge of
a steep cliff. Exposed to the elements.
The entrance is formed by a huge cantilevered canopy,
to protect cars and visitors from the monsoon deluge.
The architects built the house around two existing mango trees.
Three open courtyards bring air and light into a large sitting/dining
area, three en-suite bedrooms and a kitchen.
A second floor with bedroom and bathroom burrows down
into the cliff face.
This house looks quite monolithic and singular on the outside.
But on the inside, it's not like that at all.
It's an almost labyrinth-like set of spaces where there's this ambiguity
around what's actually inside and what's outside.
The forest has been allowed to creep indoors.
Grasses were woven into living areas and trees grow freely in the courtyards.
In some parts, nature's even taking over the concrete.
And those boundaries between inside and outside are blurred in the most
everyday spaces.
Bathrooms are often talked about in terms of a fittings they have.
The taps and so on.
I'm not really interested in all of that.
What I'm interested in is, atmosphere, the experience of bathing.
But because I'm busy, I usually shower.
You know, I don't have time to bathe.
But I think if I did, it would have to be under a mango tree,
surrounded by marigolds.
It makes the interior atmosphere visceral and sensual.
But these open spaces and trees aren't the only connection to that outside environment.
This house is called The House Of Liquid Stone for a couple of reasons.
Mainly because it sits on basalt, a rock that is this escarpment.
And that same rock is ground-up and put into the concrete as aggregate,
and it gives of this fantastic patina.
But it's also because the accommodation of this house literally steps down
the hill. The rooms flow down the hill.
This local rock has been used alongside stone from across India to create
striking contrasts of texture that take you on a journey through the
house. From the rough gravel entrances...
..through hallways of matt flagstones...
..to the polished stone floors of the living rooms.
And here to the courtyard,
where the high basalt concrete walls frame the view out towards the mountain.
P! Yeah?Teas up.
Oh, great.
Builder's?No, it's Assam.
Thank you.You're welcome.
It's quite a view, isn't it? Oh, Piers, it's lovely isn't it?
I love a rural view, but this is kind of endlessly fascinating,
isn't it? The factory and then the cars,
like a little silver thread going across the hill.
It has everything in it, though, doesn't it?
I mean, there's mountains, temples, industrial plants, and villages
and fields that are being tended and worked.
It's quite a tapestry.
It's a nice pool. And I know you've heard this before,
but I will be swimming in that later.
I haven't brought my swimmers. I'm not planning on getting wet today.
Go skinny-dipping.
Like that enticing pool, the rooms on this side of the house,
feel like they're hanging onto the edge of the cliff side,
with nothing but fresh air below.
Just having a little snoop around the bedrooms.
And this is a very simple, quite large bedroom.
Just want to have a quick look out of the window.
Oh, hang on. How does this work?
That's very pleasing.
It's a sash mechanism, but it's, yeah,
using a counterweight and the weight is visible.
I think that's really beautiful.
It's a shame about the view.
I've just seen a butterfly.
Hello! I might try and put this out.
Come on, sweetie, come on sweetie, come on sweetie.
That's my good deed for the day.
The surprise of this house is how much lies behind this very blank
elevation. It gives nothing away.
And all you see is,
a four metre high band of concrete that's about 30 metres long.
And nothing else. But behind that blank concrete wall is a rich and
complex house that is as deep as it is wide.
But curiously, that presents a problem
because in deep plan buildings,
you have no light or ventilation in the middle.
But the architect has solved that only ever making the accommodation
in this house one room deep.
So, what he's done is introduce a series of courtyards that run right
the way through the house. They snaked through the house,
so the middle is one big courtyard that goes from front to back.
But then, these courtyards vent and light everything else,
so there's another courtyard at the entrance.
So there's another tree at the entrance that grows up through it.
And then around that are the bedrooms.
So there's one bedroom here which has windows on two sides,
another bedroom over here, which has windows on two sides, and then
another bedroom here with a bathroom courtyard.
So within this deep plan building, which is incredibly contemporary,
there is an ancient way of making space.
This is, in some ways,
a traditional Indian courtyard house hiding behind this 30 metre long
concrete elevation.
And it's in those quiet courtyard spaces that the cares of the world
just drift away.
Gosh, you're making yourself at home.
It's funny you should say that, I feel so at home here.
You know sometimes, and we're very privileged,
but you go into a house and you're almost nervous to sit down or to use
anything. I feel here that this is a place where kids are welcome,
where you can make as much mess as you like.
You can really enjoy yourselves and relax.
You planning on making a big mess? LAUGHING: Yeah!
It's a very informal house and I think that contemporary architecture
doesn't sit happily with informality,
because most contemporary houses are very neat, very ordered.
There's almost a desire by the architects to fix a house as it was
in the photograph. This is the opposite.
Relaxation is at the heart of this house.
From the swing benches to the spa-like bathrooms
and nature quietly growing around you.
It's there, too, in the contrast of materials.
Hard stone and concrete are softened by wooden furniture and brightly
coloured fabrics.
Concrete has a reputation for austerity,
but this house is so warm and tactile.
Architects Sangeeta Merchant and Sanjeev Panjabi
have agreed to talk me through their approach.
Is this house particularly Indian, do you feel?
We've tried to sort of bring in a sort of Indianness through spaces,
not through the form.
Indian families generally come together in the courtyard.
Courtyard homes have always been the kind of homes we've lived in.
Indian families are generally big.
And they would bring ten more people, you know,
it's always friends and cousins and extended family.
So the courtyard just becomes that room for expansion.
We've likened this house to dripping chocolate sauce all over vanilla ice
cream. The idea was to have a flat top and just drip it like the river
building. That's why it's called liquid stone.
And when you first showed your client's the model or the scheme for
this, what did they say? Shock. Shock?
Yeah. It felt like living under a bridge.
That was the first comment that came to us.
So they said that to you? Really? They said it's like living under a bridge?
Yes. The second was that, suppose the quality of the concrete is not good,
can we paint over it?
Third, the pool, the way it is, is too precarious, somebody could fall out.
It was a facade which has nothing, like it doesn't even look like a house.
We like that. We like that shock value.
Unless it's something new and bang, smack in the face,
you've not done anything, you've not broken new ground.
I want to ask owner, Gurav, if he also likes the shock value.
Presumably the choice of concrete was, you were pleased with that, were you?
I was pleased initially.
And once the house was being built, and we saw the concrete,
and we had second thoughts and doubts...
Did you panic when you saw the concrete?
Oh, yes, the first time we did. Because there wasn't all the colour of the
furniture. It was just black stone and concrete,
and we were always concerned that my grandparents, when they came in,
they would love the place and say, "Well, it's lovely until you paint it."
Yeah, that concrete will be gorgeous once it's a different colour!
So, it was a leap of faith and I'm glad we took it.
And the location of the site didn't help.
And how was this building, this house here, in this very rural...?
Not easy, not easy. So this is a crazy slope and...
The rain is like four or five months.
So during that time, you can't even stand here.
The first time we came, we had an umbrella,
the umbrella flew away and we were like...
We better build something solid here!
As long as it lasts!
Because they were using local basalt,
all of the concrete was prepared on site.
So when the monsoon rains hit, construction work ground to a halt.
Progress was slow, and it took two and a half years to build the house.
It's very, very easy to be in, isn't it?
Was that part of the joy for you?
That's actually, I think, unanimously, what all my guests say.
When they come here, they feel at home instantly and...
Because the impact it has is immediate, isn't it?
Absolutely. The way it is now, I couldn't imagine it being any other way.
And nor can we.
This house is a great example of
clients and architects coming together to
create something really unusual.
By interweaving traditional spaces and the natural world into a modern
building, they've created a warm,
relaxed and intimate piece of architecture.
Ah, finally the moment I've been waiting for.
# I can see clearly now the rain has gone
# I can see all obstacles in my way... #
Our next stop is a few miles southwest,
at a home where the architects have decided to work with the landscape,
in a completely different way.
This must be the clay region, because pots everywhere.
People selling pots.Yeah, yeah.
The earth is clearly brilliant for making things, isn't it?
Yeah.They're hand-making bricks.
They're just cutting the earth, aren't they? And moulding it.
For centuries, bricks like this have been used to make buildings that are
solid and robust, as a defence against the unforgiving weather.
But the house we're heading to see takes a far more delicate approach.
To get there, we're travelling deep into the Western Ghats,
a beautiful mountainous region that straddles the west of India.
There are 160,000 square kilometres of rugged wilderness,
packed with dense rain forests, lakes and rivers,
with ancient forts clinging to the peaks
and wild panthers still roaming the hills.
And we're curious to know how you make architecture that deals with
surroundings as epic as this.
BIRDS WARBLE
It's famous for its biodiversity.
Here, the Western Ghats. That's right, yeah.
I think we're hearing quite a lot of it now.
We are.Piers.
I think this is us.
The House Of Three Streams has been very much shaped by the landscape.
The result is a fluid, enigmatic house that almost tiptoes down the
hillside, through series of origami-like roof verandas
and open spaces.
It takes its name from the waterways that flow around and even through
the house during the heavy monsoon rains.
Because this is architecture that's all about letting nature do the talking.
My first impressions of this
home are that, it's incredibly sensitive to its environment.
And I'm actually finding get really moving,
because his countryside here is so ancient and, brilliantly,
the house isn't interfering with the beauty of the landscape.
It's so delicately placed.
I haven't arrived and thought, "Oh, look, there's a great big posh house..."
There's also real ambiguity in terms of how you get in.
I mean, there's no obvious front door,
you can just slide into the building from wherever you want.
There's hardly house here at all, really, Piers.
Is there? Just shade. A roof and floor.
I think houses are ruined by being houselike.
That's a very good thing to say, I like that idea.
If you're going to build a house, don't build it like a house.
I could be an architect.
There are more than 1,000 square metres of house-that's-not-a-house here,
all flowing out from a fort style wall and tower,
Which forms the spine of the building.
It's an incredibly steep site, framed by seasonal waterways.
The house is a series of asymmetrical zinc-roofed verandas,
scattered down the hillside,
providing outdoor and indoor dining spaces,
a kitchen, living space and viewing platform.
En-suite bedrooms are tucked out of sight,
placed on top of each other to allow uninterrupted views.
At the lowest level, a swimming pool forms the roof of two more bedrooms.
Ooh! Suddenly, we're underneath a really exciting space!
I think this is thrilling and I didn't expect it.
I didn't expect it to have all these wonderful crisscross of beams.
And just that metal on top!
But actually, in this landscape, and in this context,
what you need above all else is shade from the sun, shade from the...
Or shelter from the rain.
And, you need as big a roof as possible,
and actually not much else.
And it allows you to have this panoramic view of the Western Ghats.
One of the most beautiful sites in the world.
And nothing is allowed to get in the way of that
outdoor experience.
I like that there's and inversion here of how you typically make space,
because the walls are completely transparent.
They're glass, and the things that open are solid.
But of course, that makes sense because you don't want a division between
you and the landscape. What I like the idea of, Piers,
is being up here during the monsoon and hearing the rain thundering on
this metal roof and being inside the space with the glass,
looking outside. I mean, it must be virtually impossible to see
your hand in front of your face when the monsoons come here.
Here we are now, when there isn't a monsoon,
but we're equally immersed in nature.
The experience here is
identical in many ways just to being under the trees outside.
In fact, trees inspired one of the key pieces of design.
These unusual beam structures unlock
the underlying philosophy of the architecture.
So, instead of there being regular, repetitive columns,
there's this beautifully complex series of trusses that come down to
the ground as trees, pulling back all the structure from the edge.
And what it means is that the house provides
uninterrupted panoramic views
of the landscape from wherever you look.
The wilderness has also been embraced by the architects to shape
every aspect of their approach.
This house is all about landscape, in plan and in section.
If I draw the contours of this piece of land,
I think what the site is clearly is a steeply sloping site that steps
down the hill. And what these architects have done is then
to look at the contours and work out where the hollows are,
and then where, on the flat pieces,
they can either place pieces of building
or bridges to get across from one building to another.
Once the architects had identified the flat pieces of land,
they then decided what part of the house they would become.
And with such a steep site dictating where they could build,
the house ended up being split across six levels.
And it's the experience of stepping down through the site,
through the natural trees and through the man-made trees
that makes the experience of this house so exciting.
That immersive feeling of living amongst the trees even follows you indoors.
There's a suite here with an en-suite bathroom.
If you listen very carefully, you can hear all the birds...
BIRDS CHIRP AND CALL
Imagine waking up to that!
You don't even have to draw the curtains, because you're entirely private here.
I imagine in here is...
SHE GASPS
There's a bathroom here. And it's a good one.
This stone that is used throughout the house is used in here.
And it's called kota.
And it's from southern India.
And it is so beautiful.
It's a soft slatey green and it gives everywhere you go a sort of feeling
of being underwater.
And here, in the shower room,
you could open up these shutters and be showering with the birds in the trees.
What's incredible,
is that I've been to lots and lots of bathrooms in my life.
But I realise,
this is one of the all-time great bathrooms.
There is a real sense of the architecture of being in an intimate
relationship with its natural environment.
Owner and architect, Kamal Malik, is going to take me through its story.
Why did you build a house in this region?
I was born and brought up and did my entire schooling
in the Himalayas. Now, they are mountains.
And here was an opportunity,
close to Mumbai, and you can get into the hills, and you have...
You have a kind of setting, in a way, that I spent my childhood in.
And, we had these wonderful streams,
three of them, that flowed through the site.
And we saw it during the monsoon, it was quite amazing.
The other thing which happened here was,
the inspiration of the tree,
so you see the trunk and you see the branches.
And if you look back, you will see the actual support of the roof
is an echo of an understanding of that.
Curiously, that was my first impression,
was coming in and actually feeling like I was under a tree.
So you never have that sense of there being something between you
and landscape. You're always in landscape here.
So, in the tropics, if you actually look at it,
and you were here let's say for 72 hours, and just living here,
you would spend most of your time on the veranda.
Because this is where you experience the breeze,
you experience nature and you even enjoy the rain,
and so on and so forth sitting in here.
I think it's only to sleep that you're going to go inside a room.
But every room has been designed basically,
for both the natural ventilation,
the ability to look out, to be in union with nature,
and being able to see.
This house was a family affair and Kamal worked closely with his son,
fellow architect, Arjun.
The views from here, Arjun, are second to none.
They're extraordinarily beautiful, aren't they?
Mm-hm.Because of course, you have designed and built this house with
your father.Mm-hm.
And I have to ask you, what's it like working with your dad?
The process has been wonderful and rewarding.
It has had its impacts in this house.
For example,
my parents don't enjoy being in the water, so, therefore,
we separated the veranda spaces where he and his friends could be in
a particular place,
my family and our friends could be closer to the pool and have our own
kind of privacy and space, and yet be connected.
Everyone has their own favourite place, and that's the whole point.
It's choice, it's openness.
When you spend time here, what do you end up doing?
Pretty much nothing.Really?
Yeah. Swimming, talking, listening to music.
And what a pool, it's an extraordinarily beautiful thing
in and of itself.
So, why did you decide to raise the pool up,
sort of into the view, almost?
When it gets really warm, all the water sources dry up,
and the rats and frogs start to gravitate to any potential water source,
and the snakes follow. That's not particularly safe.
To avoid that, we lifted up the pool to restrict access.
It's got the sense of infinity.
You are swimming in the tree-line, with the mountains in the horizon.
And nice also to be gliding through the water in the full and certain
knowledge that you won't be joined by a rat.
That always helps, yes.I like that in a swimming pool, don't you?
Your father's an architect. You are an architect.
At any point, did it cross your mind to become a Bollywood star,
because you are so stupidly handsome!
No, it didn't!
It actually didn't, but thank you, that's very flattering.
I think you've missed an opportunity.
Well, Bollywood's loss is definitely architecture's gain.
The whole place is beautiful.
Piers, just listening to the birds and looking out at the Western Ghats,
at the forts,
I really understand why this house is as it is.
Because it's hardly a house, it's really a series of platforms and rooms.
It's open to landscape, to nature.
And in a way, I think that's all you need.
The less the house is, in this context, the better it is.
Maybe all we need is just a very delicate roof.
Piers, Piers...
I think you've just talked us out of a job because if there's no house,
there's no programme.
Luckily, we've got another home to see, a few miles north,
near the rural town of Karjat.
We've been given the keys to a weekend house designed as a highly discreet
addition into a scene of bucolic natural beauty.
It's been built by two award-winning architects, but it's so well hidden
we don't know exactly where it is.
Well, we've come to a sort of dead end.I'm not sure it is the way.
I don't think we can go any further.
Shall we get out and walk?
I think this one looks like a walk, don't you?
Yeah.It's a lovely spot, isn't it?
There's still no house.
Ah, here we are. There's a sign of something, look.
There's something strange about finding this perfect
pocket-handkerchief size of manicured lawn.
It's about the only clue I can see that there is a building underneath us.
# Many rivers to cross
# And it's only my will... #
Riparian is nestled into the bank of the Patalganga River.
The building is half buried in the earth, rising out of the landscape.
With its camouflaged turf roof, this house shuns the limelight...
..but immerses its occupants in a rural paradise,
creating the most tranquil family hideaway.
It's a terrific bit of land, isn't it?
There's vines, birds, the river, cows over there.
It's an idyll,
an Indian idyll.
I mean, really, it's just, it's almost too relaxing to do any work at all.
But in a way, I think, the serious thing is this house is about landscape, isn't it?
I mean, this house... This house is a piece of landscape.
And I think what I'm enjoying so far is that the house is indistinguishable from landscape.
And I love that about it.
I'm going to go and discover more, though, Piers.
There must be more.
Sounds good.
Earth-sheltered houses are rare in India, but they're the perfect way to
make a house blend into its surroundings.
The turf roof makes it invisible from the east,
while keeping out the heat and providing an extra outdoor platform to admire the view.
And Riparian makes the most of its riverside location.
A courtyard hewn out of the bedrock leads to the kitchen,
which is flanked by a guest bedroom, staff areas and a child's bedroom.
On the front of the house, facing the river,
is the main bedroom and the dining room,
which open out on to an expansive teak veranda.
This intriguing entrance into a house really brings out my inner badger,
because it's like a sort of route into a badger's sett.
Let me go and find out what this particular badger's house is like.
In fact, it's light and colourful,
with a cooling breeze running all the way through.
You'd never guess it was part of the river bank.
This house straddles the line between being a piece of ground,
a piece of landscape, something embedded in the earth,
but also at the same time a lightweight building
almost in the manner of a tea plantation house
that sits single-storey above the ground,
with deep rooms, shaded by a veranda and screens.
And, refreshingly for a modern house, it's really down-to-earth.
It's sweet, it's like a little cottage inside.
Both in the scale of the space but also the familiarity of the stuff,
where a door is like a normal door, a window's like a normal window,
and the furniture is like normal furniture
and the lights are like normal lights.
And usually in modern architecture everything gets reinvented.
But it's the little touches that make it gorgeous.
This is the master bedroom.
And look at these fantastic windows.
They're Crittall windows, they're metal, steel windows.
It's very unusual, I've not seen these before in India.
They're stunning. But what I really, really, really love are these.
These are fly screens, but they're not the usual sort of nylon fly screens
which are pretty grim, actually, and you see them everywhere.
These are made out of mesh, metal mesh.
Like a Victorian food cover.
And they keep everything out, snakes and mosquitoes.
Imagine lying in this huge bed and being able to look out over this
glorious river here, watching the cattle coming to drink.
And cue the cows.
I'm sorry, I can't resist this, I know this is really bad,
but I've got to do it, and see what it's actually like,
sleeping in this bed.
Maharani Quentin, that's me.
It's a lovely view.
There is something incredibly familiar about this house,
and part of that reason is that the scale of it is very much like that
of a traditional tea plantation bungalow.
And if I draw that, there would be a tin roof on top,
there would be a veranda that goes all the way along the front,
and it would then be on stilts above the ground.
This house does all of that up to a point,
because it's that lightweight building.
But how it's different is that the ground effectively crashes
through this building, you know,
and this house, in a way, is the
traditional Indian bungalow meets earth-sheltered house.
What's clever about this house is that, typically,
most earth-sheltered houses are, in a way...
..dark and airless, because the air can't come through the house.
But here, this architect has
hollowed out these courtyards at the back
which you can walk out into, and what happens is that there's
a clear ventilation path that runs right
the way through the house.
So, this is kind of warm air, you know, rising up here.
The cool air comes right the way through and vents the house.
It all seems so effortless, but I've a feeling that creating
this oasis of tranquillity wasn't quite as simple as it looks.
The architects, Robert Verwright and Shefali Belwani, have agreed to talk me through it.
Welcome to my lovely house! Hi, Caroline.Caroline.
Shefali, hi. Lovely to meet you, Shefali.
Hi, I'm Robert.Hello, Robert. Fantastic to meet you.
The owners presumably chose this spot because of its access to the river.
Is that important for them, the access to the countryside?
Yeah, it's very unusual to have a house this close to the river.
I think in most parts of India you are usually quite far away.
They did want to swim in the river and kayak, and they do all of that.
It almost feels like it's been part of this rural landscape forever.
Forever, yeah.And was that part of your plan?
Well, what's interesting is that the house was built,
and then very quickly the landscape took over,
and it was really with that intention that the landscape would grow over
the roof, and trees growing around it.
Some elements of the landscape became unexpected design features.
The original plan specified a ramp running down to the kitchen courtyard.
During the excavation, we almost found these rocks.
Oh.And then we thought that carving these steps instead and eliminating
the ramp was a more effective way of emerging from it.
Structurally, there must have been challenges.
Yeah, it's meant to look very simple, but actually there are various forces
that come on this house.
There's the earth pressure from behind the house that tries to move the building downwards.
There's the settlement of earth underneath the foundation.
And there is of course the weight of the roof with the big layer of soil,
and this made the structure quite heavy.
Yeah, I think the construction took over two years.
It was very labour intensive and I think because of that the process took that long.
And that sensitivity to the environment is present throughout the design,
from the sunken rear living space
to the delicate stilts
and glass frontage that makes the house almost invisible.
The architects have created an homage to the traditional tea plantation house,
reinterpreted in this context, in the 21st century.
And I love that they've refused to build in such a way that dominates the landscape.
Contemporary architecture has a lot to answer for in terms of buildings
that often seem to be extravagant in how they present themselves to the world.
They're often showing off.
Contemporary architecture doesn't deal with the quiet and the understated.
But this house does.
This house is incredibly modest and simple and calm
and straightforward.
It's really refreshing in that.
This is some of the most beautiful landscape we've seen in India.
And Riparian acts as a vessel, in some ways, where you can experience this landscape.
Salman, do you know where Caroline is?
Ah, I don't know, sir.
It's just too hard to resist!
You know, sometimes in this life, you're taken to see good houses,
and then you're taken to see great houses.
But this house is like Mary Poppins,
it's practically perfect in every way.
Reluctantly, I'm going to have to hang up my paddle and get to our next destination.
But it seems it's Piers' turn to get distracted.
Wow, cricket, Caz!
Oh, it's beautiful.
SHOUTING
Get your pads on, you're in.
I actually don't have my whites with me today.
Do you play, or do you not want to?
I'd like to, if they offered, I would play if I was...
Oh, they'll ask you.
Play this game?
VOICEOVER:Oh, OK, a quick innings. I hope you're watching, England.
It's like bowling at 100mph.
This is actually a bit terrifying.
So, here, I take my life...
My life in my hands.
Oh!
I don't think they're aware of how competitive he is.
I'm supposed to run now.
Oh! Leg before wicket.
Salman.Yes, ma'am. Do you think Piers is any good at cricket?Yeah.
You can bowl a bit faster.
He's really bad, isn't he?
No, ma'am, not bad.
Oh!
Hell.He's terrible at cricket, you know. Yeah!
Do I just turn and run?
England v India, I think India's going to win this, don't you?
Of course, ma'am."Of course, ma'am!"
It's... Oh! They really caught him out!
LAUGHTER
He's going to be quite bad-tempered for the rest of the journey, I think. Yes.Yeah.
We're leaving behind the gentle thwack of leather on willow,
for the craziness of the city.
Mumbai has grown at such a rate in recent decades that there are now
satellite cities to cope with the overspill.
And we're heading to one called Navi, or New Mumbai.
We're giving up the safety of Salman's taxi for something a little more adventurous.
Did you ever want to be made into a sandwich!
CAROLINE LAUGHS
We're definitely back in the city now, Piers.Certainly are.
I quite fancy one of these. Is that the M5?
I think we're going onto the M5 now.
Oh, no, we're doing a massive U-turn right in the middle of the M5.
Oh.We're going to T-bone that cyclist.
VOICEOVER:If we can just get there in one piece,
we've heard there's a house that combines the latest contemporary design
with a deep reverence for India's architectural heritage.
So, I hope we can get up the hill in this thing.
We're here.That's great, thank you.
Thank you so much. Yeah, that'll cover it.
Thank you so much, namaste.
I'm in love already.
This appeals to my sense of the ancient and the new
being together like that.
Are you the ancient, I'm the new? Yeah.
We've arrived at the fabulously eclectic Collage House.
The exterior is inspired by traditional Indian house-building
with its resourceful use of materials.
But it's also a kind of memory box for the disappearing architecture of
the old Mumbai, from the handcrafted doors and windows,
to antique columns which have all been salvaged
from demolition and reused here to create something completely new.
I'm full of anticipation.
Me too, I'm actually tingling all over.
Genuinely, I have no idea what's around the corner,
because already this is a house that's surprising me.
This is surprising me.
It's a huge metal gate, it's enormous.
Do you feel like you're in Gulliver's Travels?Yeah, I do, it's absolutely enormous.
Look!
I'm dumbstruck.
And that's not often I hear you say that.No.
I mean, so many ideas already.
I mean, the sense of material richness,
from all of these things that are repurposed.
The pipes, the tiles,
this stone.
This is an amazing tapestry of stuff.
There's fun everywhere.
Everywhere my eye goes, I see something I'm immediately fascinated by,
and it's so wonderful to have this kind of hit of adrenaline as you arrive into a house.
And we've only just started. Exactly, we've only been here a few moments.
The architects' challenge was to make a family home for four generations,
with a sense of space and privacy, on a relatively small plot,
sandwiched between two neighbouring buildings.
With no views across epic landscapes available,
they turned the focus inwards
to a central courtyard on the first floor.
Wrapped around this are the living area,
master bedroom and a small pool.
On the floor above are two more bedrooms.
And there's a glass pavilion on the roof
supported by 100-year-old antique columns.
The many doors and windows on the facade might look chaotic
but are actually carefully placed
within a concrete frame which connects all of
the spaces from front to back across all three levels.
Caroline.
VOICEOVER: The owners, Naryan and Dipti,
are taking me on a tour to show me
how they went about reclaiming Mumbai's architectural past.
You know, this house is a blend of modern as well as old.
Yes.So, if you look at it, the floor on which you are walking
is the modern architecture.
This is the modern, was it, granite?
Yes. And as we move up,
suddenly you find that now you are walking at a place
where the wood is more than 125 years old.
Oh, I love that.
I will show you another marvel. This is the hanging steps.
Yes.It took a lot of time in making these steps.
Yeah, they are wonderfully made.
When we decided to build this house,
we wanted everything to be a masterpiece.
So, we couldn't overlook the steps.
So, we wanted our steps and railing also to be a masterpiece.
We told our architect that I am not going to make another house in my
life, so whatever I am making now is going to be the last house,
so it has to be a very memorable house.
It's a home, there's a difference between a house and a home.
And it's so important that a house isn't just a house, that it is a home,
and your house is clearly full of
fascinating objects and design features.
I mean, this is wonderful.
These are actually called printing blocks, which the artisans used for
printing on, making printing on saris, on fabric.
There were about 600 pieces that I picked up and I brought them here.
And then we made this lovely design.
And these designs are of various times.
Some designs could be... Like this particular design
was something about 40 years back.
So, these are also from various states.
Like, this is from Rajasthan.
Something would be like print blocks are used in Gujarat.
That is Gujarati?Yes.States of India, all blocks.
How amazing.
So, these blocks represent various states of India.
I have a real desire, standing here, to put on a long white dress,
cover this in ink and dye, and to go...
..like that.Yes.
And then like that.
And then see what I've got on me.
Because they're so beautiful.
You know then what would happen?No.
You would be representing all the states of India!
THEY LAUGH
Curiously, for such an innovative house,
the language of construction is fairly familiar.
There's a steel frame, there's concrete slabs.
But within that, there's a mind-blowing approach to recycling,
upcycling, salvaging, reclaiming.
Each one of these windows and doors on this front elevation has been
taken from a reclamation yard.
There's then a strategy for how all of these are going to fit together.
And each one is then placed next to another of a different size,
then there's a little Juliet balcony made for each one.
And the whole becomes an extraordinary patchwork,
a composition that just makes this house truly original.
Hello.
These recycling solutions are all over the house,
with reclaimed materials given imaginative new purposes.
This is a bedhead and a cupboard made from salvaged and recycled picture frames.
It's also, of course, highly decorative.
And decoration has been banished from architecture by architects for about
100 years or so.
Architects are kind of fascists about all that stuff.
There's this myth that somehow less is more.
But more is always more.
And there's more wherever you look.
Pretty much every bathroom I've ever been in, I know what to expect.
But this is like some brilliantly crazy hall of mirrors that you might
find in a fairground.
But it's also really sensible.
It isn't just whimsy.
These are all salvaged mirrors reused here,
set out beautifully.
But then the water pipe that comes down is painted pink,
and then it's a light, becomes a towel rail,
becomes a loo roll holder.
It's so witty, so engaging, and so purposeful.
Bringing such anarchic fun to the design of Collage House were project
architects Shilpa and Pinkish Shah.
How did you begin to know how to piece together
100,000 different components?
It became a little bit like jazz,
where you kind of improvise a little bit.
There's kind of a loose structure,
but you're kind of playing around and riffing in the middle.
And it's been a joyful journey because of that,
that you allow, let it take over a life of its own.
But you are there to kind of pull it, tweak it, you know, and put it in place.
We could only loosely structure how the windows would happen,
and then you actually take it aside and you discover,
"Oh, there's a gap there, or this window needs to be a little shorter, and what are you going to do?"
A lot of things happened also as we are designing. Yeah.
Because once it is set, I mean, it started with the windows, for sure.
And once that got into motion and other things like,
now we know, of course, there are going to be downtake pipes.
And monsoons in Bombay are gorgeous.
I mean, it's such a heavy rain that the downtake water pipes are just gushing water.
So then we said, "Why not make it into a feature?"
So, that's how, if you see the pipes, they come kind of down,
and they allow the water to be seen during... It's an event, you know?
It's about capturing these moments about seasonal change.
And the acts of everyday life being made kind of dignified and joyous in some sense, you know?
And Mumbai is also gradually disappearing, unfortunately.
It's being sanitised, lots of buildings are coming down.
So here was an opportunity to salvage a part of that memory and make it yours.
And is there a wider applicability of this approach in other
buildings, for other architects, for other people, for other clients?
I think there is definitely something to take away from here.
It may not be at such a scale, but definitely bits and pieces.
I think the amount of waste that we as a society
are kind of producing is crazy.
And I think, if anything,
maybe this is like a wake-up call for all of us,
to just remind ourselves again of, you know,
where we can really use our resources more carefully
so that we don't produce as much waste.
I've been an architect for 20 years, something like that,
and very few buildings really challenge us.
But I think this building does, because it does so many things at the same time.
It's witty and serious.
It's playful and stern.
It's controlled and loose.
And all those other opposing things that you never thought could sit together.
And I think, you know, as you look forward,
you sort of wonder, "Where is the road map for the future?"
But, for me...
..I think it's here.
Talk about being cranked up to 11.
I don't think I could have ever imagined anywhere being as viscerally stimulating as India.
It's true. It's sometimes overwhelming for all the senses, isn't it?
The colours, the sights, the sounds, the smells, the people.
But what's been a real excitement for me is the fact that the houses
have lived up to all that.
They've been so clever and so different and so original and so witty.
They've each done a clever little juggle with elements I never thought
could have been combined, and pulled it off.
In a way, I think they've shown me I just need to raise my own game.
They've challenged me like nothing.
I love hearing that, Piers.
That's really exciting.
Next time, we're in Norway
to see how an awe-inspiring landscape
and extreme weather give rise to
homes of perfect understatement...
Oh! I really, really like this house.
..brazen assertiveness...
Hospital is a word that springs to mind.
..and daredevil defiance...
I think this is probably the greatest house I've ever been in.
..as, once again, we go in search of
the world's most extraordinary homes.