North Light Studio

A painter’s studio and residence on a narrow urban plot

Location
Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad
Year
2022
Area
3,900 sq ft
Scope
Architecture, Interior Design, Bespoke Furniture
CompactUrbanConcreteLive-Work
Design Intent

A live-work building for an artist on a 30-foot-wide plot, where the working studio — not the house — sets the terms.

The studio needed consistent, indirect north light and a 5-metre clear height. Both were placed at the top of the building, where nothing could later be built to obstruct them, and the residence was arranged beneath.

Board-formed concrete carries the structure and the finish simultaneously. On a plot this narrow, every millimetre given to a secondary finish layer is a millimetre lost from the rooms.

The stair is the social spine. Wider than it needs to be, top-lit, with a landing deep enough to sit on — it does the work that a hallway would in a larger house.

Materials & Palette

What the house isactually made of.

Board-formed concrete

Structure and finish in one

Sal wood

Stair treads and window frames

Polished IPS

Grey oxide floor, seamless

Steel glazing

Slim-profile north clerestory

01

North light, protected

A 5-metre clear-height studio at roof level with a north clerestory that no future neighbouring construction can obstruct.

02

One material

Board-formed concrete serves as structure, wall and finish — critical on a plot only 30 feet wide.

03

The stair as room

Deliberately over-wide and top-lit, with a landing sized to sit on. It replaces the circulation a larger house would need.

Start Your Project

Something like this,somewhere like yours.

If North Light Studio is close to what you have in mind, tell us about your site and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right studio for it.