Tertulia Bar and Restaurant / Otherworlds

The Balcao, Goa’s beloved porch - The Balcao is an outdoor porch found in most Goan homes today, characterized by thick curved walls with seats built onto its sides, finished in brightly colored hand-cast concrete. It is a welcome gesture of the house it gently invites you within. The balcao is a crucial part of a Goan home as this is where one spends most of their time, casually relaxing and napping in the afternoons, reading a book, writing, having the morning tea or even chatting with the neighbor or passersby, it holds space for many such activities. At a time of modern architecture and rampant urbanization, all houses tend to become very self-contained, private, and detached, separated from the city or the neighborhood. The balcao becomes all the more important at such a time as it is built with the idea of reinforcing the kinship between the house and the neighborhood. It is where the indoor meets the outdoor, where the boundaries of the exterior and interiors are blurred.