Pretty screen: India’s Lattice House protects its residents from prying eyes

Sameep Padora
Lattice House is located in a new suburb on Jammu city’s outskirts in northwest India and is the brainchild of Mumbai-based architect Sameep Padora
(Image credit: Edmund Sumner)

Looking like a mysterious stack of timber boxes, the Lattice House is located in a new suburb on Jammu city’s outskirts in northwest India. Created by Mumbai-based architect Sameep Padora, the structure is defined by its characteristic, permeable skin made of horizontal bands of vertical wood lattice screens. 

The architect, who is known for his craft based approach and his award-winning designs that combine the modern and the traditional, is also the hand behind the small but perfectly formed Shiv Temple in Maharashtra (2010) and the angular Fort House in Hyderabad (2014). 

Floor plan

(Image credit: Edmund Sumner)

Take an interactive tour of Lattice House

The Lattice House’s clever facade elements act as the structure’s all-encompassing envelope, wrapping around everything, from balconies and sun shading, to storage and the house’s main living interiors. In one neat, single multi-tasking sweep, the screens also secure the residents’ privacy from passers-by’s prying eyes. 

Clean white interiors inside let the structure’s distinct skin become its centrepiece. The internal arrangement is done on a horizontal basis; more private functions, such as bedrooms and ensuite bathrooms, are located to the rear of the house, while living, dinning and cooking areas are placed in an open plan layout towards the front. A garden is accessible from the front or sides, further elaborating on the house’s connection between indoors and outdoors. 

Mysterious stack of wooden boxes

The structure sits like a mysterious stack of wooden boxes, set back from the street

(Image credit: Edmund Sumner)

Permeable skin made of horizontal bands of vertical wood lattice

The structure is defined by its characteristic, permeable skin made of horizontal bands of vertical wood lattice screens that make the house glow at night

(Image credit: Edmund Sumner)

House’s owners

During the day, the screen protects the house’s owners from prying eyes, as well as the region’s bright sun

(Image credit: Edmund Sumner)

Clever façade elements

Those clever façade elements at the same time act as the structure’s all-encompassing envelope, wrapping around everything...

(Image credit: Edmund Sumner)

Living interiors

...from balconies, to storage and the house’s main living interiors

(Image credit: Edmund Sumner)

Clean white interiors

Clean white interiors inside let the structure’s distinct skin shine 

(Image credit: Edmund Sumner)

Bedrooms and ensuite bathrooms

Inside, more private functions, such as bedrooms and ensuite bathrooms, are located to the rear of the house...

(Image credit: Edmund Sumner)

Dinning and cooking areas

...while living, dinning and cooking areas are placed in an open plan layout towards the front

(Image credit: Edmund Sumner)

A garden

A garden is accessible from the front or sides of the house, linking further inside and outside

(Image credit: Edmund Sumner)

INFORMATION

For more information on the architecture visit the website

Photography: Edmund Sumner

Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture Editor at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018) and Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020).