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It is easy to forget that this house is in the suburbs of Coimbatore. With a fusion of a contemporary-tropical mood, a black, white & red centric minimal design - this bachelor’s pad is an ideal amalgamation of the client’s brief. The client, who is a 75-year-old retired bachelor who came with an eclectic design brief, 15-year-old cane furniture set (a sofa, tables, lounge chairs, a bed base) and a love for plants. 

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The design revolves around the plants he intended to populate the house with and the handsome furniture set. The principal design motif is derived from this set and enunciated through highlighting elements. While the bottom one-third of the door is flat, the top two-thirds of it is Fluted to imitate the cane furniture. The entire door is painted a beautiful spice red. The colour is a contrast to the set, but the similarity in form creates a visual language between the shell and what fills it. The red with black and white form the holy trinity of a colour palette that bases the warm cane tone.

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The partition wall between the kitchen and living was removed, making the plan more open and spacious, bringing some flexibility to the layout. The common spaces in the house are segregated by the flooring and   the false ceiling. The spine of the house is set by black tile with white epoxy in the flooring, white walls, and a layered false ceiling which is a combination of a Fluted spice red ceiling and a plain white one. The triad of these colours forms a backdrop to the rich green of the plants. 

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The flooring, despite being entirely of the same black tile, is segregated by well thought out tile patterns, which helps bring a distinction to the layout. Upon entrance, the tile and the red recessed ceiling immediately direct one's eyes to the balcony which has a beautiful view of the mountains outside. To the left of this visual corridor is the living room and to the right is the open kitchen with a breakfast counter. This open layout is ideal setting to host evening soirees. 

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The kitchen is partially modular and partially built on-site. The lower half is modular kitchen from Nolte, while the upper half of the kitchen is built on-site continuing the Fluted and plain pattern. The master bedroom is simple, with orchestrated cane furniture, IKEA wardrobes and black and white details. The habitat of the guest bedroom is a thick mattress placed on the floor with a bedside lamp and the choice of plant for that month. The room also doubles up as a space for storage or a study, as and when required. The bathrooms use black, white, and grey tiles with pink epoxy to tie the entire house together. 

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The essence of this 75 sq.m. apartment lies in its intervention of providing the client with a biophilic setting where he can easily reorganize his plants around the house. The planning of the house gives him a free rein to be able to move them out into the sun and shuffle them on the way back in. This evolving layout along with the colour palette helps achieve the intended brief with a different aesthetic every time. The design aims to bring about a minimal, low-maintenance home with a quirky flair on a constrained budget.