Soma Residences

Maharashtra is hot in April, and Pune especially so. We could have written a taller window and a bigger air-conditioning bill. Instead we built a perforated terracotta screen, one hand-cut block at a time, and let it do the work.

It is a jali, an idea four hundred years old, and it is still the most efficient shading device we know. The light that comes through it is warm and even, and it changes across the day.

This is the project where the studio stopped asking clients what they wanted and started asking them what the building should do for them.