A Trip toIndia

Site plan.

A collaborative project with Jimmy Limoffered Michael Sorkin the uniqueopportunity to taste not only the ‘deliriousquality of global practice’, enriched by trips tosouthern India, but also the unique chance to design one-off residences for a lush,Garden of Eden-like setting.

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Invited by the Bangalore firm SMLXL to collaborate on aproject for a group of houses in Coorg – a town nearMangalore in Karnataka – long-time friends Jimmy Lim andMichael Sorkin decided to set up a collaborative practice: LimSorkin Design (LSD). The name is meant not simply to becheeky, but to suggest the inevitably delirious quality ofglobal practice. Excited immersions in otherness are par forthe contemporary course: trips. As architectural productionis increasingly internationalised, its sites must be inventedin mind, culture transduced, filtered imaginatively. Ofcourse, every project demands familiar styles of duediligence, channelling of topography, climate, habit anddesire. But there are no inevitable outcomes any more, evenif sought. Where is the south Indian tradition of three-bedroom, time-share second homes in the hills for ITexecutives and their families, designed by architects fromaround the world?

The site in Coorg, filled with gifts, is demandingly beautiful.A working coffee plantation set in lush hills is as Edenic as itgets, supporting symbiotic cardamom and pepper cultivationas well as abundant wildlife. It will continue to produce theseproducts at current levels and the 20-odd new houses – to bedesigned by a number of Indian and foreign architects – areobliged to fit in respectfully. Locations have been chosen bythe plantation owner, a trained agronomist who has spentyears walking the land and who knows it with remarkableintimacy. Best practices have been set out for the minimaluse of energy, natural ventilation, on-site waste treatmentand local materials. Carbon footprints will be neutral.

How then to proceed? Lim (LSD/KL) and Sorkin (LSD/NY)have taken slightly different approaches. Although both haveimagined their groups of structures as families, the genetics

vary. The four houses from LSD/KL, clustered on adjacentsites, have more intimate tectonic relations and detailing, andare intended to be seen as an ensemble, a little settlement inthe forest. The five from LSD/NY are distributed on moredistant and disconnected sites and are much moremorphologically varied, while sharing a palette of details,especially for elements that are likely to be fabricated off site.Both groups are similar in area and programme, and both areintimately attuned to the particularities of sun, breeze,monsoon and view.

If there is a quality about these houses that might bedescribed as ‘Indian’, it lies not simply in their environmentalbehaviour, but in a certain licence for latitude. Both Lim andSorkin are frequent visitors to India and both have a history ofintoxication with the place. Because of the country’sastonishing diversity and because of the remarkablehybridities everywhere produced by the reciprocalinseminations of form, place and culture, Indian architecturecan never be singular: the very thought is ludicrous anddisrespectful. Saturated with difference, this is a place todrive thought and imagination, not to constrict it.

For Lim and Sorkin, this idea of the filtration of differencelikewise liberated their joint practice from the low-odds taskof trying to find some singular style on which to cooperate.Instead, both took their own histories and fertilised themwith what attracted their eyes and hearts in this mad andmagical place. Lim was perhaps more drawn to the simpletrabeation and intricate detail of various woodenarchitectures, Sorkin to the convulsive form and coloration ofDravidian holy places. Were these influences direct? By nomeans. Are they legible? Perhaps not. Are they present?Without a doubt. 4

Project from Site 8.

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Site 1 (LSD/KL)Three individual spaces radiate from a central void with stairs that spiralaround this opening. Walls are undefined with a shading device that spansthree floors and allows constant ventilation.

Site 2 (LSD/KL)Straddling a hillock, this structure is planned as two fingersthat cantilever and protrude out over the valley with decksthat overlook the voids in between.

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Site 3 (LSD/KL)Sitting on a steep site the entire western facade of this houseis clad with sunshades that allow constant air movementthroughout. The pool is located under a triple-volume voidthat is punctuated by a network of ramps and bridges.

Site 4 (LSD/NY)A house in the middle of the woods with living spaces that bridge in and outwith terraces and highly operable walls.

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Site 5 (LSD/NY)The green roof of this house, which commands a magnificent long view,extends the ground plane of the entry grade with residential spaces below.

Site 6 (LSD/NY)Located on a steeply sloping site with panoramic views, the structure iselevated on stilts both to take in vistas and to allow ventilation from all sides.

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Site 8 (LSD/NY)Near the centre of the plantation with glimpses through the trees of distanthills, the building is organised in three pavilions – linked via externalwalkways – centred on a pool and topped by a single sinewy roof.

Site 7 (LSD/NY)Embedded in the side of a small ravine, this elongated house looks throughdense woods down a hill to a working paddy field.

Text © 2007 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 84-5, 87(b),88-9 © Michael Sorkin Studio; pp 86, 87(t) © Jimmy Lim