Big-Little House: A Brick Jaali Home in Bengaluru

On a residential street in Bengaluru, a multi-storey terracotta brick screen rises behind a row of mature trees. Big-Little House, designed by Kamat and Rozario Architecture, is a family residence that wraps its facade in a deep brick jaali, allowing bamboo to grow through the voids and creating a permeable boundary between the street and the home. The brick screen is the project's defining gesture: it filters sunlight, frames glimpses of the interior, and turns the building's exterior into a planted vertical garden.

The house is named for its dual character. From the street, it reads as a tall, monolithic brick volume. From inside, it opens into double-height living rooms, side gardens, and skylit upper floors. The contrast between the closed front and the open interior is the project's spatial idea. The brick screen does the work of privacy. Everything behind it is open.

The Brick Jaali Facade

The brick screen is built from terracotta blocks laid in a cross-stretcher pattern with deep voids between courses. The voids are large enough to plant bamboo and let it grow through to the street side. The result is a facade that is part architecture and part landscape: the brick provides the structure, the bamboo provides the foliage. From below, looking up, the screen rises three storeys with a single cantilevered concrete balcony breaking the rhythm. The trees at the street edge complete the layered green wall.

Entry and Ground Floor

The entry passes through a grey concrete portal under a timber-slatted upper level. Brick paving leads to the front door, with a mature tree growing through the entry court. Inside, the ground floor opens immediately to a side garden through full-height sliding glass doors. The living room has exposed brick walls, a teal media cabinet, grey tile floors, and a view to a sculpted ornamental tree on the lawn. The open plan and the side garden eliminate the sense of being on a tight urban plot.

The Living Room: Brick, Glass, and Bamboo

The double-height living room is the heart of the house. One wall is exposed brick with the TV mounted on it. Another wall is full-height glass to the garden, with bamboo growing on the other side of the brick jaali. A black metal staircase rises along the third wall, connecting to the upper floors. A sectional sofa, low timber coffee tables, and a jute rug occupy the centre. From the upper level, the living room is visible through a balcony rail, showing the full height and the layered relationship between the brick walls, the glass, and the bamboo.

Kitchen and Bedrooms

The kitchen is in dark grey concrete: walls, ceiling, and counter base. A light stone counter holds the gas hob. A view through to the garden with the brick screen beyond brings light into the cooking space. The bedrooms have exposed brick walls (used as headboard accents), concrete ceilings, white walls, and timber furniture. The material palette is consistent throughout: brick, concrete, timber, and one or two coloured accents (the teal cabinet, a framed artwork). The interior is calm because the exterior screen does all the visual work.

Plan

The ground floor plan shows the layout: parking at the front under the brick screen, living and family rooms opening to a side garden, kitchen and service areas at the rear, and the staircase connecting to the upper bedrooms. The house occupies the centre of the plot, with the side garden providing the only outdoor space. The brick screen wraps the front to give the deep plan a layered facade.

Why This Project Matters

Brick jaali screens are a traditional Indian architectural element that has been reinterpreted by contemporary architects. Most modern jaali walls are decorative: a single layer of perforated brick on an otherwise standard facade. Kamat and Rozario went deeper. They built a multi-storey brick screen with voids large enough to plant bamboo, turning the facade into a vertical garden that grows over time. The brick is structural. The bamboo is functional (privacy, shade, cooling). The whole assembly is a climate device, not an ornament.

If you are designing a house in a hot climate, on a tight urban plot, or anywhere that needs privacy without enclosure, Big-Little House is worth studying for how a deep brick screen and a planted facade can solve the problems of sun, view, and privacy in a single architectural element.

About the Studio

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Project credits: Big-Little House by Kamat and Rozario Architecture. Bengaluru, India. Photographs: Arjun Krishna.