This Leafy Green Garden Dwelling in India Has an Endless Pool

Studio Dashline designs a lush home for a family in Gwalior with local materials, contemporary flourishes, and a stargazing aperture for nighttime swims.

Aug 19, 2024 - 18:34

This Leafy Green Garden Dwelling in India Has an Endless Pool

Studio Dashline designs a lush home for a family in Gwalior with local materials, contemporary flourishes, and a stargazing aperture for nighttime swims.

Uday Gupta and his family like to call it a farmhouse, but their accessory dwelling in a dense residential neighborhood of Gwalior, in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, is really more of a garden oasis five minutes from their home.

Teak louvers shade glass doors from the garden into the living and dining room. — Teak louvers shade the glass doors leading from the garden to the living and dining room.
Photo: Yash Jain

"The idea was to have a very seamless connection to nature because the existing landscape was already lush, and it had beautiful trees," says architect Dheeraj Bajaj of Studio Dashline. "We never wanted to extend our footprint out of the boundaries which were already there."

On a typical day, Uday’s extended family and friends gather there in the mornings and evenings to take dips in the pool, pick fruits and vegetables, and enjoy nature. "It’s a nice place to sit, a place to have a steam bath after workouts, a nice place to be around," he says of the structure, which is situated on a plot of land the family has used for soccer matches and recreational activities for the last 40 years.