The Mumbai-based firm Spasm – founded by Sangeeta Merchant and Sanjeev Panjabi – was commissioned to build this house amidst a coconut grove in Nandgaon, a town in the Murud region. In Urdu, one of India’s more than twenty official languages, parikrama means ‘path around something,’ and also refers to the Hindu and Buddhist ritual of circumambulating sacred objects or idols. The concept is applied to the residential project, tracing a circle while moving from space to pace, always in contact with the outside. A 3.5-meter overhang held up by a zinc roof protects this pathway against heavy monsoon rains.

Organized along a north-south axis, the elongated house contains a built area of 748 square meters. At the center, the bedrooms are lined up along a core raised 1.2 meters above ground level, connected to the corridor on two sides. The shared spaces – kitchen and living-dining spaces – are located at the ends, completely opening out to the exterior on three sides.

Thought out to engage in dialogue with the landscape, the Parikrama House rises as a contemporary building in stone and glass, organically integrated into its context. The stone construction is executed with grayish granite slabs 40 millimeters thick, into the walls of which sliding glass panels are embedded. These windows can be opened all the way, eliminating the limits between inside and out. The construction is the result of locking together large panes of glazing between large stone blocks.