Pramila Farms

The project also experiments with the edge conditions of the site. The perimeter wall becomes a laboratory of material explorations—CSEB blocks made in-house with angled courses, jalis for filtered light, gabion columns filled with basalt stones, and stretches of dry-stone masonry. Together, these elements lend the farm a tactile richness, simultaneously playful and robust. The residential plot accommodates the main house, a caretaker’s unit, an open well, an overhead tank, parking space, and a large 2,00,000-litre water storage tank in the north for rainwater harvesting. A combination of a septic tank and soak pit manages the black and grey water treatment. This system layers pebbles and sand to enable percolation, allowing treated water to seep into the ground and recharge the water table.

Pramila Farms is imagined as a house that will grow with its land—a place where domestic life, farming, and the rugged beauty of the Pali hills come together through a language of stone, lime, timber, and water.

Pramila Farms is planned as a retreat for two sisters, designed as a home deeply rooted in its agrarian setting at the foothills of Pali. The site combines two adjoining plots—one dedicated to farming and cultivation, the other to residence. The main house is organised around a central open courtyard, with a continuous corridor wrapping its edges and creating shaded circulation. The courtyard cutout is narrow and sacred in character, anchored by traditional timber columns that lend it a sense of rootedness. Two master bedrooms, a kitchen, a dining space, a powder toilet, and a living area overlooking the majestic Pali hills make up the program. Varied verandas, each with its own proportion and orientation, extend the living spaces and bedrooms outward, blending the house into its landscape. Materiality plays a central role in grounding the house to its context. Locally sourced laterite stone forms the primary walls, with basalt stone foundations supporting them. The roof is made with Mangalore tiles over an MS skeleton, while the interiors are finished in lime plaster applied through traditional methods.