Project: The Architect’s Home
Architects: ALEEYA. design studio
Location: Karachi, Pakistan
Area: 22,500 sf
Year: 2022
Photographs by: Matt Harrington
The Architect’s Home by ALEEYA. design studio
The Architect’s Home, designed by ALEEYA. design studio, is located in Karachi, Pakistan, in an upscale neighborhood known as the defense housing authority. The house is situated on a southwest-facing lot measuring 2,000 square yards, with specific design constraints imposed by the local by-laws, including setbacks from the front and sides of the boundary wall.
As a design studio focused on evolution and experimentation, ALEEYA. design studio aimed to create an authentic and untainted vision for The Architect’s Home. With the architect as both the client and designer, the house embodies a unique and organic approach to design, allowing for untethered experimentation.
ALEEYA. The design studio has completed The Architect’s Home. Located in an upscale neighborhood of Karachi, The Architect’s Home is situated on a southwest facing 2,000 square yards lot measuring 116’-6” wide by 149’-9” deep. As a city, Karachi is infamous for its affluent housing societies juxtaposed with underprivileged village-like communities. The defense housing authority, where The Architect’s Home has been built consists of several neighborhoods that follow strict, antiquated by-laws created by officials several decades ago, most importantly, a 30-foot set back from the front and 10 feet from all three sides of the boundary wall, which automatically dictate the design constraints.
In a world where change is the only constant, ALEEYA. design studio is a firm driven by evolution – evolution in spaces, in materials, in objects, and in light. The studio wants not to follow any norm, but carve its journey through thoughts, emotions, and diverse experiences. Using design to evoke the senses, A. creates atmospheres, continuously experimenting with solid and void – a design ethos that is continuously echoed in the Architect’s Home, occupied by her and her family.
When the architect is both the client and the designer, the manifestation is an authentic, untainted vision; it is exactly what is felt in that moment of design, which gives life to something rather organic. It allows for untethered experimentation that other creative endeavors may not allow.
In a city like Karachi, cultural norms and traditional values somewhat dictate the design of homes, but in this case, the architect was keen to introduce a new aesthetic to her hometown. Unlike the design of other houses on the street, the facade consists of slanting protruding masses cladded with French crema limestone with 7’-0” wide by 8’-0” high windows embedded in between, creating a heavy exterior structure. This provides a level of privacy from the street and aptly conceals a 95-foot-long driveway inside the boundary wall and main gate. The idea was to screen a large, spacious, and light-filled space of living behind an all-imposing concrete structure echoing a Swiss facade.
Providing two entrances to the home, one experiences distinct atmospheres – the calm, silent pool patio giving way through a large glass pivot door; the other a 16’-0” wide by 16’-0” deep double height entrance foyer under a 16’-0” wide by 28’-0” long skylight behind a heavy 9-foot mahogany wood double door, which immediately floods the center of the house with ever-transforming light from sunrise to sunset. The careful placement of all window openings invites the warm Karachi sun to strike through the house directly hitting structural elements and the soft materials within.
It is a common misconception that complex edges and unique curves give structures life. Nature and light can unravel feelings and create atmospheres that awaken our senses. Through the simplest form, the most beautiful experience can emerge.
The structure of this house was designed with this thought in mind, with the intentionally large circulation spaces that create a meaningful flow throughout the house, which initiates movement within. The Architect’s Home reveals the soul of the Architect, creating a space that is in constant evolution as the seasons change.
