Studio UF+O Pushes the Courtyards to the Edges of a Walled Family House in Rural Rajasthan

House Between Walls sits on a plot in Rewatra, a village in Rajasthan, that most architects would call a problem: 9 by 24 metres, long and narrow, with low-rise neighbours on three sides and only one face to the world. That face looks onto the village square. Mumbai-based Studio UF+O (Studio Urban Form + Objects), led by Prachi Parekh and Vineet Vora, built a 4,800 sq ft home here for a multigenerational family. The house spends long stretches empty and comes alive during festivals and family gatherings.

The brief asked for two things that pull against each other. The house has to take part in the communal life of the square, and it has to stay secure and closed while nobody is home. The architects did not reach for a haveli template. They raised three-storey walls along both long edges and cut open-to-sky voids directly against them. The traditional Rajasthani courtyard is turned inside out: the open space runs along the perimeter instead of sitting at the centre. We think this is the most useful idea in the project, because it comes from climate and use rather than from nostalgia.

A Street Front That Gives Nothing Away

The single elevation does a lot of work. Steps lead straight up from the street to a plinth and veranda, and a light metal railing marks the edge without closing it off. Above, a blank, pale panelled volume cantilevers out over a glass-block wall. There are no windows that look directly into the house. That restraint answers the security brief: when the family is away, the house reads as a closed, unbothered object.

The cantilever also works as an overhang, shading the veranda and the glass beneath it in a hot, dusty climate. In the side street view, the grey volume rises next to a carved pink sandstone neighbour. Studio UF+O made no attempt to imitate it, and the contrast suits the house. It holds its ground without borrowing ornament it has not earned.

Reading the Village From Above

The elevated view gives the scale of the place: low rooftops, white temple spires and scrub running out to the horizon. A three-storey house is tall in this setting, and that height is what lets the walls do their job. They close off the sides from neighbours who are close enough to touch, while the voids behind them pull light down into a deep, narrow plan.

Seen against this low skyline, the decision to avoid recognisable vernacular forms makes sense. The village already has its own language. The house adds an honest new volume to it instead of a pastiche of jharokhas and chhatris.

The Glass-Block Wall as a Social Signal

The glass-block wall sits right in front of the formal sitting room, and it is the cleverest piece of social design in the house. By day it filters daylight into a double-height room lined in oak, and diagonal sun breaks across the panelled upper wall. It lets light through without giving away a view, so the room stays private even though it faces the square.

At night the relationship flips. When the family is in residence, the wall glows, and neighbours read it as an invitation to drop by. A material usually associated with bathrooms and stairwells ends up working like a porch light for a whole community. There is also a small, telling story behind its construction. Local masons were unfamiliar with glass block, so a carpenter installed the wall because his work was more precise. Getting this house built meant shifting trades around, not only shifting forms.

Courtyards Pushed to the Edges

Pushing the voids to the walled edges solves a problem central courtyards cannot solve on a plot this narrow. A courtyard in the middle would split a 9-metre width into two thin, awkward strips. Edge voids keep the plan whole and still give every room a source of light and air. They also separate the built volume from the adjoining properties, so bedrooms can open onto light wells without looking at a neighbour's wall or the street.

The architects set the proportions of these light wells to manage ventilation and keep dust out, which matters in a region where power cuts are frequent and mechanical cooling cannot be relied on. In the bedroom, a black-framed glass door opens onto one of these shafts, and the entry corridor catches a low patch of sun on its floor. These are modest moments, but they show the walls working as climate devices as much as enclosures.

Living and Dining Under Raking Light

The double-height living room is where the section pays off. An oak-panelled mezzanine overlooks the sofa and chairs, and shafts of sunlight move across a concrete panel wall through the day. The dining area keeps the palette tight: cane chairs, a black angular table base and three paper pendants against pale panelling and tall curtained windows. The furniture reads as a considered collection and avoids the look of a showroom.

Every major room is lit from above or from the side voids. None of them needs the street. For a house that has to turn its back on the square for months at a time, we think that is the right priority.

A Stair That Does the Work of a Courtyard

The stair is the vertical spine of the plan, and it takes on part of the gathering role a courtyard would normally play. Marble treads, a black steel handrail and oak balustrades rise beneath skylights, and the landings widen enough to hold a cane bench. From the upper flights you look down onto the dining table, so moving through the house becomes a way of keeping an eye on whoever is gathered below.

Light lands differently on every level. A narrow flight pulls you toward a tall window; a top-lit landing frames a figure passing under the skylight. For a multigenerational household, these in-between spaces probably matter more than any single room.

Material Restraint and Local Craft

The palette is short: concrete, pale panel cladding, oak, marble, glass block and blackened steel. The narrow range is a strength. In a village where some of these materials were unfamiliar to local builders, a limited set allowed the team to develop a level of finish over roughly two years of construction. A longer list of materials would have spread that effort thin.

Plans and Drawings

The axonometric series tells the design story in a few steps. A plain box gets raised compound walls, the front is pushed back, a block is lifted, then courtyards and decks are carved out and parts of the walls are pushed down. Studio UF+O worked mostly in plan and section, and these diagrams show why: almost every decision happens in the volume of the house, not on its single elevation.

The first floor plan arranges bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms and decks around a skylit family area and a central stair along the narrow plot. The terrace level adds an open roof terrace, two skylights, a staff room and storage. Sections AA and BB show the stacked floors, the double-height volumes and a tree beside the house, which together make the case for the edge voids clearer than any photograph.

Why This Project Matters

Rural Indian housing tends to get one of two treatments: generic concrete boxes or nostalgic vernacular revivals. House Between Walls takes a third route. It treats the courtyard as a performance problem covering light, air, dust, privacy and security, and it lets the answer look the way it needs to. Moving the voids to the edges of a 9-metre plot is a move other architects working on tight, single-frontage sites across the region can borrow directly.

Most of all, the house shows that a closed facade does not have to be antisocial. A glowing glass-block wall, a plinth with a few steps and a light railing are enough to tell the village square when the family is home and when the door is, in effect, open. With very few elements, Studio UF+O has designed a house that knows when to welcome people and when to stay shut.

House Between Walls by Studio UF+O (Studio Urban Form + Objects), Rewatra, Rajasthan, India. Area: 4,800 sq ft. Completed: 2026. Photography: Niveditaa Gupta.

About the Studio

Share Your Own Work on uni.xyz

If projects like this are the kind of work you want to make, uni.xyz is a place to publish your own, find collaborators, and enter design competitions.