House in a House Pannipitiya, Colombo, Sri Lanka Architect: PUR Architecture

Summing up this house, the architects speak of “a new vernacular in a seemingly contemporary envelope”. Like so many houses in the ‘tropical modern’ idiom, House in a House offers connection with the natural world outside, but separation from direct exposure to the harsh tropical climate by screening devices. This screening – often using actual screens, but typically through an enfilade of open, connected, retreating spaces – provides softened visual connection, and protection from direct sunlight, along with cross-ventilation. At the same time, indirect natural lighting and subtle manipulation of light and shade create the perception of a cooler space.

This house, on a 368-square-metre site (living space 237 square metres across two levels), is in a dense urban residential suburb of Colombo, characterised by small plots. It is rectilinear, running along a north–south axis. Given the tropical context, the architects chose to minimise fenestration along the long east– west elevations.

The conceptualisation of the house grew from discussions with the client and his family – a process that ensured ownership of the final result by the family. The client had grown up as one of five siblings on the south coast of Sri Lanka and, say the architects, “had fond memories of his childhood home – soft light filtering through barred windows, lazy afternoons spent on a breezy verandah in a large garden” together with festive occasions when the extended family gathered around the dining room table.

The aim here was not to replicate that environment, but simulate it by capturing the essence of that childhood home and the traditional Sri Lankan house – to “bring the comfort of the familiar”.

The result is a barn-like structure with a gable roof. It is divided into two domains. On the left of the entry are the private spaces (upstairs and downstairs), and on the right, the