P7 House

LocationPhase 7, DHA, Lahore

Year2021

TypeResidential

Area7,800 sq ft

StatusCompleted

The house makes a deliberate inversion: the largest, most generous room is not on the ground floor. It is below it. The basement dining and drawing room, 578 square feet of open plan facing a carved courtyard through full-height glass, is where the house comes alive. Beside it, a separate sunken light well pulls daylight into the basement on its own. Two devices for the same problem: how to make underground space feel lived in rather than buried.

The courtyard is open to sky at basement level, a 241 square foot cut in the ground that the basement is organized around. Above it, the ground floor holds the everyday life of the house. The first floor holds the bedrooms and a 490 square foot walkway that is less a corridor than a gallery: a room whose purpose is movement.

The house took three years to build. The material palette explains why. Polished raw gray concrete runs underfoot throughout. Custom terrazzo, an ivory base with dark coal flakes designed for this project, appears alongside it. Black marble in the wet areas only. Ceilings plain white, fixtures black. Rosewood on every door, every piece of built-in joinery, every surface that asks for warmth against the rawness of the concrete. Windows in black aluminum, double-glazed with black tinted glass that absorbs light instead of reflecting it, disappearing into the frame. Door frames detailed with reveals: the frame recessed, the door appearing to float. Every junction drawn before it was built. Three years was not long enough to rush it.

P7 House, Phase 7, DHA, Lahore, photograph 1

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Process

Drawn, prototyped, built

P7 House, The ground opened up. Everything the section shows below the datum had to be dug before anything could be built above it. — The ground opened up. Everything the section shows below the datum had to be dug before anything could be built above it.

P7 House, Timber-boarded earth retention holding the cut while the basement walls went in. The neighbouring plot sits at the level the house starts from. — Timber-boarded earth retention holding the cut while the basement walls went in. The neighbouring plot sits at the level the house starts from.

P7 House, The courtyard slab propped on a forest of raw timber while the concrete cured. The props are cut on site and thrown away afterwards; the shape they hold up is permanent. — The courtyard slab propped on a forest of raw timber while the concrete cured. The props are cut on site and thrown away afterwards; the shape they hold up is permanent.

P7 House, Looking down into the shored void from the floor above, the courtyard still full of props. — Looking down into the shored void from the floor above, the courtyard still full of props.

P7 House, Brick piers and concrete beams. The plan is legible here, before any of it is lined. — Brick piers and concrete beams. The plan is legible here, before any of it is lined.

P7 House, The shell from the street, at the point where the house is only its structure. — The shell from the street, at the point where the house is only its structure.

Drawings

Detail and fabrication

P7 House, Courtyard Section, drawn at a quarter inch to the foot. The sunken light well and the 578 square foot basement dining and drawing room sit to the left, the courtyard is cut open at the centre, bedrooms stack to the right. Roof at +23 feet, basement floor at minus 8 feet 6: thirty-one and a half feet of section on one plot. — Courtyard Section, drawn at a quarter inch to the foot. The sunken light well and the 578 square foot basement dining and drawing room sit to the left, the courtyard is cut open at the centre, bedrooms stack to the right. Roof at +23 feet, basement floor at minus 8 feet 6: thirty-one and a half feet of section on one plot.

Next Project

P7 House

Process

Drawings

THE INNER GARDEN