Shree Ananda

We were asked to build 900 homes without building a single one too many. The answer was not more density — it was less, better placed. Nine towers of eleven floors, set back far enough that every home gets cross-ventilation without facing anyone else's balcony.

The planning brief for Ananda was written around a single tree. A rain tree that had been on the site for over sixty years, and the only thing on it we could not move. So we did not. The towers bend around it, and every one of the nine has a different relationship to its shade.

That kind of decision costs floor area. It also produces a home people are sorry to leave.