Trees Sliced Through Recasts Family Living Around Open Courtyards
Trees Sliced Through sits in Ahmedabad, India, as a house by Matharoo Associates that channels garden, light, and concrete into a taut domestic rhythm. The design folds living, dining, and intimate courts between thick walls and red planes, drawing the eye from shaded interiors to lawns and water. It’s a residence with a clear sequence and a crisp material voice.
Morning light grazes the board-formed concrete and turns its grain into relief. A calm lawn holds the reflection of deep red infill planes, while tall walls step and frame pockets of shade.
This is a house in Ahmedabad by Matharoo Associates that choreographs movement through a run of courts and rooms. The plan privileges outdoor rooms and shaded volumes, letting daily life hug trees and water while concrete, glass, and color keep order. Everything reads in sequence.
Enter Through Walls
Visitors meet a near-solid facade, ribbed with horizontal formwork and cut by a precise slot. One turn reveals a recessed red portal and a quiet threshold that swaps street heat for filtered shade, then a slender water edge that cools the approach. Movement is intentional.
Courtyards Hold Trees
Inside, the plan yields to existing trunks that rise through open-to-sky pockets. Rooms pinwheel around these courts so living, dining, and a lounge face greenery on at least two sides, and sliding panels widen to the lawn when the day softens. Air drifts through the courts.
Stairs Thread Volumes
A sculptural stair climbs between concrete webs, its red handrail tracing a taut line against the gray. Landings double as overlooks to the double-height living room, and a second stair hovers as notched treads that cast sawtooth shadows across the floor during late afternoon. Circulation becomes theatre.
Rooms Open To Garden
The long dining table runs under globe pendants beside glazing that pockets away to the grass. A compact kitchen catches raking sun across a black worktop while a leafy planter cools the corner, and the adjacent family room pulls toward the lawn with a broad sectional and low tables. Edges stay active.
Concrete Frames Light
Board-formed walls and slabs read as a continuous shell that edits glare and holds shadow. Cutouts, bridges, and deep soffits temper the western sun, and the material’s fine grain takes light softly over the day—punctuated by flashes of red at jambs and beams (a clear wayfinding note). Surfaces feel cool.
In the quieter rooms, light falls in angled bars and lands on simple beds and built-ins. Evening returns the garden to view, and the concrete settles back to charcoal as crickets take the score.
Photography by Vinay Panjwani
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