Mantra Guest House

This is a guest house designed to knit together three existing structures on adjacent plots, in a fishing village that is slowly urbanizing due to its proximity to the heritage town of Pondicherry. Two of the existing houses are built on the lines of the local Tamil style; the third house is a more recent building with a ‘mongrelized bungalow’ style popular in suburban India.

Using the vernacular vocabulary of the Pondicherry Franco-Tamil architecture, a new component was designed, that will integrate all these existing buildings. The proportions and building technology was sought to be as faithful as possible to the vernacular building technology and materials while innovating on the space layout to meet the needs of the high-end guests.