Lateral Verandah House by Malik Architecture – A Dialogue Between Landscape and Design

Located in Pune, India, the Lateral Verandah House by Malik Architecture is a striking residential project that extends the architectural language of the celebrated House of Three Streams, built on the same forested hillside. Completed in 2022, this 12,883 sq. ft. residence emerges as a sculptural response to its unique site—steep slopes, dense vegetation, shifting ravines, and dramatic monsoon winds shaped by the Pawna Dam to the north-east and low-lying hills to the south-west.

The home is carefully embedded within this rugged topography, drawing inspiration from the memory of place and the cultural presence of Tung Fort, which lies nearby. Much like the land it inhabits, the house is organic, fluid, and layered, blurring boundaries between architecture and nature.

Site & Spatial Organization

The residence unfolds across two primary levels. The upper level hosts the communal living and gathering spaces, while the lower level accommodates the sleeping quarters and service areas. This hierarchy allows the house to step down naturally with the slope.

The roof structure mirrors the land’s undulating terrain. It bends, hovers, sidesteps existing trees, and provides shaded verandahs while framing panoramic views of the forest and distant hills. Designed with flitched rafters interlaced with structural “trees,” the roof anchors the home into its environment, becoming a pause point along the descent of the hillside.

Materiality & Expression

The use of raw basalt stone grounds the house in local tradition. A material historically seen in village homes and ancient forts, basalt walls connect the building to the cultural and geological roots of the region. These stone masses transform into a “built landscape,” dissolving the expected image of a house into something more timeless, visceral, and poetic.

Spatially, the architecture avoids rigid entry points or clear divisions. Instead, the design encourages fluid movement and blurred thresholds, merging the “made” with the “found.” Courtyards, verandahs, and open transitions create a rhythm of openness and intimacy. A cylindrical stone tower rising from the earth recalls fort bastions, further embedding historical allusions into contemporary living.

Landscape & Climate Response

Designed in collaboration with Studio Humane as landscape architects, the house integrates seamlessly into the surrounding forest. The verandahs and shaded decks offer immersive experiences of the dramatic monsoon climate—where rain rarely falls vertically due to shifting winds. The house becomes both refuge and frame, capturing the raw beauty of weather, light, and terrain.

The Lateral Verandah House by Kamal Malik, Arjun Malik, Meghana Tipnis, Netramohan Changmai, and Sundeep Sarangi exemplifies architecture as an ecological and cultural dialogue. It is less a “house” in the conventional sense and more a living organism—anchored in basalt, shaded by its roof canopy, and in equilibrium with the land that nurtures it.

All Photographs are works of  Bharath Ramamrutham, Edmund Sumner