Ottumpura House

A thinnai, a porch for sitting and chatting with family members, neighbors or passersby on the street, protected from the sun’s rays and heat, marks out the entrance to this home as a transitional space from openness to the world to the intimate living areas inside. This space demarcating the boundary between inside and outside typical of traditional South Indian houses transcends its role as an architectural element to take on major social significance, symbolizing a period when the local dimension – and along with it a sense of community – was far stronger than it is today.

All these reasons indicate why designer Naseeb Mehmood, at the helm of Quern Design Studio, was fascinated by the potential of the thinnai after encountering it during a trip to the southern part of the Indian subcontinent. In his design for Ottumpura House, he decided to repurpose this traditional element, deploying a version of it to function within the current historical period.

After many years living in Abu Dhabi, the owner of this residence in Kozhikode, Kerala State, was keen to return to his birthplace and spend his retirement in this home with his family, which enjoys a particularly active social life. In this context, the thinnai originally used for domestic and social activities was reinterpreted to cater to the needs of modern-day life, transformed into a versatile space to host moments of conviviality with friends or family, as well as providing a stage, screening area, dining area or relaxation area.

If the decision to repurpose a thinnai is rather unusual in a newly constructed building, to the point that it became the hallmark element of the entire design, the practice of reworking elements from the past in a modern style is, on the other hand, one of the distinguishing features in the current landscape of Indian architecture. THE PLAN 160, “Reimaging India’s Heritage”,...

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