SpaceDNA Splits a Compact Coimbatore Plot into Interlocking Half-Levels Around a Folded Terracotta Stair

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This article covers topics related to Residential Building, Architecture, Space Architecture, Space Planning, Split Level Strategy, Space Design, Floor Plan. In Coimbatore, Splitscape Residence fits 245 m² onto a 114 m² plot by working in section, with half-levels, round nooks and a folded stair at its core.

In Coimbatore, Splitscape Residence fits 245 m² onto a 114 m² plot by working in section, with half-levels, round nooks and a folded stair at its core.

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UNI Editorial published Blog under Residential Building, Architecture on Oct 10, 2026

Small urban plots in Indian cities usually produce the same house: a stack of identical floor plates, a stair pushed into a corner, and rooms that compete with each other for light and air. Splitscape Residence by SpaceDNA starts from the same constraint, a 114 m² site in a dense residential neighbourhood of Coimbatore, and refuses that answer. The house delivers 245 m² of built area, more than double its footprint, but the number matters less than how the volume is carved.

The studio's stated premise is that section, not plan, should be the primary design tool. That sounds like a slogan until you see the result: floors that slip past each other in half-levels, a double-height living room that reads as the house's core, and a sawtooth terracotta stair that functions as circulation, sculpture and spatial organiser at once. We think the project is worth studying because it shows how much generosity a tight lot can yield when you stop counting square metres per floor and start counting cubic metres per experience.

A Quiet Box for a Loud Street

Front elevation of a white concrete house with timber fin screens over planted terraces, framed by overhead power lines at dusk

Corner view of the white volume with square window boxes and a timber screen, a woman walking past the gate

Close view of the vertical timber screen above a pale stone gate, a woman in sunlight pulling the handle

From the street, the house gives away very little. A white volume punctured by square window boxes sits behind a pale stone gate, with a vertical timber screen filtering the planted terraces behind it. The overhead power lines that frame the dusk elevation are a useful reminder of context: this is an ordinary Coimbatore street, and the house does not pretend otherwise.

The restraint is strategic. The timber fins provide privacy and shade without turning the facade into a fortress, and the planted terraces signal that the real life of the house happens inside and upward. The facade is a filter, not a statement, and that is the right call for a compact plot hemmed in by neighbours.

Entering Through Light

Entry porch with stone steps and a timber door, a blurred woman walking in past a planted bed and orange pot

View through a timber door down a stairwell to a planted light well, a woven pendant lamp hanging below a round skylight

Terracotta-toned stair rising toward a balcony door, with round skylight openings casting discs of sunlight across the steps and floor

The entry sequence is short: stone steps, a planted bed, a timber door. What follows is more ambitious. A view through a doorway down the stairwell reveals a planted light well with a woven pendant hanging beneath a round skylight, and further up, circular roof openings cast discs of sunlight across the stair treads.

These round apertures are doing more than decorating. In a deep, narrow house, daylight is the scarcest resource, and pulling it vertically through the section is the only reliable way to get it into the middle of the plan. The discs of sun moving across the steps through the day turn a practical necessity into the house's most memorable moment.

The Double-Height Room as Anchor

Double-height living room with terracotta-toned stair, indoor plants and a timber door, lit by soft daylight from a skylight

Double-height living room with pink sofas, a round orange window pod overhead and a planted niche against a terracotta wall

Close view of banana plants and ferns against a terracotta plaster wall, with low pink sofas and a jute rug in soft light

The living room is where the sectional argument becomes tangible. A double-height volume, lit from above, holds low pink sofas, a jute rug and a planted niche of banana plants and ferns set against a terracotta plaster wall. Overhead, a round orange window pod projects into the space, a reminder that other rooms are looking down into this one.

On a plot this size, giving away floor area to a void is a real sacrifice, and many clients would push back. Here it pays for itself. The tall room becomes the shared reference point for every level of the house, and the indoor planting makes the interior feel like a courtyard that happens to have a roof.

A Stair That Behaves Like Architecture

Terracotta-toned staircase with glass balustrade beside a wall-hung timber shelf, a blurred figure in white walking past a mirror

Double-height stair hall with zigzag folded terracotta flights and a steel handrail above a green stone floor and jute rug

Sawtooth terracotta stair flight crossing a white wall with a round window, a woman standing at the glass-railed landing

The terracotta-toned stair is the project's signature. Its zigzag flights fold up through the double-height hall with a sawtooth profile visible from below, crossing white walls and round windows, held by a steel handrail on one side and glass balustrades at the landings.

What we appreciate is that the stair is not treated as a service element to be hidden. In a split-level house, the stair is the plan, because every room is reached by climbing half a floor. SpaceDNA leans into that by giving it colour, a folded geometry and an exposed soffit, so moving through the house becomes a sequence of framed views rather than a commute between floors.

Split Levels Around the Kitchen

Kitchen with timber cabinetry and a long island with folding stools, beside an orange cantilevered stair and glass balustrade

Timber kitchen island with folding stools and fruit bowls, glass balustrade overlooking a planted courtyard and sofa below

Terracotta stair soffit hanging over a split-level living space, with a figure on an upper landing among tropical plants in daylight

The kitchen sits on its own half-level, with timber cabinetry and a long island lined with folding stools. A glass balustrade along its edge opens views down to the planted living area and sofas below, while the cantilevered orange stair rises beside it.

This is the split-level logic at its most useful. The cook is neither isolated in a back room nor exposed in an open-plan hall; the change in height gives separation without walls. The underside of the stair, hanging over the living space, makes the overlap between levels explicit, and figures on the upper landings remain visible from below.

Round Nooks as Pockets of Retreat

Looking down the stair void to a round window nook with a reader inside, kitchen and sofa levels below in daylight

Circular orange reading nook set high in the wall above a terracotta stair, a person seated inside beside planted greenery

Close-up of the circular wall niche with brass lining and pink bolster cushions, beside a tufted headboard and a paper floor lamp

Circular openings recur throughout the house, and the best of them are inhabitable. A round orange reading nook set high in the wall above the stair holds a seated reader, looking down the void toward the kitchen and sofa levels. Elsewhere, a circular niche lined in brass with pink bolster cushions turns a wall into a place to curl up.

These pockets matter because a house organised around open voids can easily lose its quiet corners. The nooks give back a sense of enclosure and ownership, small spaces you can claim, without closing off the connection to the rest of the house. They are the counterweight to the double-height room.

Bedrooms with a Wall You Can Sit In

Bedroom seen through an open timber door, with a round orange wall niche holding a person's bare feet and a concrete plank ceiling

Bedroom with a circular cushioned window seat in the white wall, a person reclining inside, and a vertical plank timber door beside it

Sliding timber-framed glass doors open to a planted balcony beside a bed, with built-in shelves and a stone-inlaid grey floor

The bedrooms carry the circular motif into private space. A cushioned round window seat is cut into a white wall beside a vertical plank timber door, and in another room an orange niche becomes a perch for bare feet beneath a concrete plank ceiling. Sliding timber-framed glass doors open one bedroom onto a planted balcony, with built-in shelving and a stone-inlaid grey floor.

The balconies extend the planted terraces seen from the street, so greenery is never far from any room. Built-in joinery keeps loose furniture to a minimum, which is how compact bedrooms stay calm.

Material Warmth in the Working Rooms

Timber joinery with a built-in desk beside a open door, sunlight falling across green stone floor and a curtain

Bathroom lined in rust-coloured textured plaster with a recessed niche and louvred window, daylight glowing through the slats

Woman painting at an easel beside a timber storage wall and sliding glass door, with daylight falling across the green floor

The palette is consistent and tactile: timber joinery, green stone floors, terracotta and rust-coloured plaster. A built-in desk sits beside an open door with sunlight falling across the floor; a studio corner pairs a timber storage wall with a sliding glass door for an easel; a bathroom is wrapped in rust-toned textured plaster, with a recessed niche and a louvred window glowing through its slats.

None of these rooms is large, and none feels cramped. The warm, earthy surfaces absorb and soften the daylight that the section works so hard to bring in, and the louvres and slatted screens let air and light through while keeping out the neighbours' sightlines.

Plans and Drawings

Section drawing showing rust-coloured staircases linking stacked floors, a round window in the tall living space and a perforated roof volume, with figures for

Physical model in cardboard-toned board showing a stepped block with a slatted screen facade, small square openings and white figures on the roof and ground

The section drawing is the key document here, and fittingly so. It shows the rust-coloured staircases linking stacked floors, the round window projecting into the tall living space and a perforated volume at the roof. Read alongside the plans, it makes clear that the house's spatial richness is a product of offsets in height rather than clever room shapes.

The physical model, in cardboard-toned board, shows the stepped block with its slatted screen facade and small square openings, with figures placed on the roof as well as at ground level. It reinforces that the volume was conceived as a three-dimensional object first, and as a set of floor plates second.

Why This Project Matters

Indian cities are full of plots like this one, and most of them are built out with little thought beyond maximising floor area. Splitscape Residence makes a case that the same constraints can produce a house of real spatial quality if the designer treats height as the primary material. Half-levels, a generous void and a stair given the importance it deserves do more for daily life than an extra room ever could.

The lesson travels well. You do not need a large site or an exotic programme to make a compelling house; you need a clear idea and the discipline to carry it through every scale, from the section down to a cushioned niche in a bedroom wall. SpaceDNA's insistence on designing in section is a useful corrective for anyone who still starts a small house with a floor plan.

Splitscape Residence by SpaceDNA, Coimbatore, India. Area: 245 m². Completed: 2026. Photography: Studio f/8.

About the Studio

SpaceDNA

Official website of SpaceDNA, one of the studios behind this project.

spacedna.in

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