SPASM Design Architects puts family at the heart of the terrcota-clad Sarvasva home
Most metro cities of the world face similar challenges: congestion, lack of space, pollution and insufficient green areas, to name a few. In Mumbai, a dense and chaotic urban expanse, home to approximately 21 million people, many believe—rightly so—that there’s little room left to set up newer landscapes or climatically sensitive buildings. While there may be few available spaces, they often come with their complexities and access to them is typically a matter of privilege. Architects and designers are increasingly forced to adopt challenging approaches as they grapple with building in these constrained environments. So they look up!
“Bombay is a tough city to build anything of real reckoning,” as Sangeeta Merchant and Sanjeev Panjabi, founders of SPASM Design Architects relay while discussing their latest project, the Sarvasva single-family residence in Mumbai, India, with STIR. The clients, impressed by a render of an unbuilt concept on SPASM’s website, approached them with an aspiration to live in a ‘vertical home’. This seemingly simple request ended up dovetailing into the conditions that the site presented—a small plot on a leafy inner street of East Mumbai, across a heritage University Campus that is likely to remain low-rise for the foreseeable future. How can values of family living and sustainable architecture within a vertical organisation be instilled, in a dense urban fabric?
My Precious World
Envision a gradually eroded, earthy red cuboid emerging from a dense grey backdrop. This private residence, named Sarvasva—meaning “my previous world”—centres on preserving the quintessential Indian tradition of joint family living, in all-encompassing, cohesive structure. The clients sought an intrinsically Indian name reflecting the importance of family life, an architectural challenge particularly relevant in designing a vertical home, as SPASM explains.
Unfurling across 12 storeys, the residential architecture revolves around the concept of a stretched-out verandah, integrating another hallmark of Indian design throughout its spatiality. Beginning with a double basement for parking, the ground floor features a homely reception lobby highlighted by a chandelier designed by the architects themselves. The next two to three floors are dedicated to the family’s support staff, including living quarters, service areas and laundry facilities. With thoughtfully planned spaces for the family’s future generations, Sarvasva’s design accommodates the joint family and their support staff.
Above these, the kitchen becomes one of the home’s magnetic activity spaces. In an exclusive conversation with STIR, the Indian architects share that the Gujarati family naturally gravitates toward the kitchen area, as they love to cook and know they’ll find each other there. “They spend most of their time in this kitchen. Even during our handover, we found them all gathered here,” Merchant and Panjabi recall fondly. Above the kitchen, the levels include guest suites and accommodations for the client’s parents and their newly married son. Further up, the home features entertainment spaces and formal living areas, culminating in a floor that boasts a double-level pool design and gym.
“This concept of a stretched-out verandah allows for a seamless blend of indoor and outdoor living without feeling cramped,” the architects explain. Sarvasva duly incorporates greenery and semi-open spaces, inviting an influx of natural light and the refreshing elements of earth, rain and wind into this vertical setting.
“With this verticality fitting into this residential typology, we tried to play with varying heights on each level,” SPASM tells STIR. Some areas of the vertical void are expertly dealt with double-height ceilings, some with superimposed, semi-open mezzanine floors with strategic views to the home’s other levels, interspersed and connected with spiral staircase designs and generous insertions of balconies, terraces and greens, for cohesive, comfortable living.
“When using the building—whether it’s the internal stairs, the external spiral staircases, or even the fire staircase at the back—each element conveys a different sense and feel, offering poignant viewpoints both inside and outside. It’s a rich blend that incorporates the essence of the city alongside the comforts of home,” they add.
The architects also share that the lady of the house expressed multiple times that this is her “precious world—surrounded by the people I love and my love for my plants.” In response, SPASM thoughtfully incorporated a herb garden on the kitchen floor, for her to cultivate microgreens and actively live within the design they created. “Like this element, most of the design features incorporated were resolutions that worked their way to fruition,” the architects share.
“SPASM believes in the value of joint families and we aim to promote this way of life rather than merely replicate the unitised, nuclear architecture of the West for its own sake. Integrating inclusivity—where your staff, grandparents and grandchildren coexist—was crucial for this project. This sense of community, where generations grow up together, embodies what we stand for at SPASM,” Merchant elaborated.
The composition of the tower’s apertures follows the verticality of the residential building. “We aimed to frame what is essential and what is not,” the architects explain. They liken the jagged, cut-out openings of the home to how an Indian sari-clad woman looks out from behind her veil—the view selectively frames what is unimportant. As a result, the home is only partially visible to outsiders, while its inhabitants can look out at the neighbourhood through various vantage points of their dwelling. “With everything around them being quite tall, people are often looking into each other’s spaces. The goal was to allow residents to see outside while maintaining a sense of privacy—a kind of filtering,” they convey.
Terracotta living
The residential design is made distinct in its generous use of earthy red terracotta panels, which became a key, salient feature in realising Sarvasva. This choice was a direct response to the high humidity faced by the Indian city. “Using baked terracotta was a no-brainer; it was essential to create a second skin for the home,” the Indian designers explain. The gradual, weathered patina that the material develops over time also influenced their decision to incorporate terracotta jaalis, which provide privacy without completely blocking views or the influx of natural light and ventilation.
According to Merchant and Panjabi, the terracotta cloak also works on acoustic performance and self-cleaning levels for Indian architecture. This layer of air created between the building and its context significantly reduces cooling loads, resulting in lower air conditioning costs over time. Additionally, dust is less noticeable in the colour of the baked terracotta panels, making it an appropriate solution as a surface treatment.
“We believe this colour embodies a sense of ‘ethnicity’, lending itself to the ‘Indian-ness’ of the concrete-framed project. We come from the mud, so this rustic connection feels particularly poignant while still being modern. That unique duality resonates greatly with Sarvasva’s personality,” they observe.
All the materials used—from the flooring to the wall treatments and outdoor paving—were carefully selected to suit a tropical Indian climate. For instance, “We opted for Indian Banswara stone instead of acres of Italian marble because it made sense for the environment. While the family desired a sense of luxury, they also appreciated that it could be understated and climate-responsive. Luxury can mean different things to different people, so we were fortunate that the family was completely onboard with this approach,” Panjabi and Merchant comment on Sarvasva’s climate-responsive design.
Climate-responsive designs for meaningful change
“We believe that sustainability operates across various registers and the project’s longevity is a significant factor,” Merchant and Panjabi affirm. The building’s quality and its terracotta second skin effectively address the challenges posed by Mumbai’s relentless monsoons. Another indispensable consideration was to keep the windows as deeply set as possible, reducing direct sunlight exposure and minimising air conditioning loads. “It was crucial for us to push the windows far back. We had to find a balance between interior comfort and practical solutions, rather than simply opting for massive, flat glass glazing, which many builders and developers use to mimic Western aesthetics. We are firm in our stance that glazing should never be blatantly flush with the façade; it just doesn’t work for India. That in itself is a massive sustainable design move,” they believe.
When asked what they take away from this project, SPASM quickly notes that Sarvasva was a significant learning experience for them, marking their first foray into designing a luxury residential tower, in contrast to their previous low-slung bungalows and holiday home projects in this typology. The architects proudly share how they learned throughout the design and execution of Sarvasva and how they see this as a successful prototype for future projects, for others who might be looking to them for inspiration while demonstrating how the city’s fabric can be sensitively addressed to meet its needs and extant issues.
“It is possible to cater to a client’s ambitions of luxury living while being mindful of the site’s climate and context. We achieved this while being rooted in our Indian way of living. We want to positively impact our city. Many developments by builders, developers and architects in Bombay over the past few decades have been largely driven by greed, which saddens us. Our contributions have to be authentic, climatically sensitive and of sound build quality— a natural response of red earth and natural green in an otherwise concrete jungle [as reflected in Sarvasva]. We hope to guide architecture in our city toward a more natural, compassionate urban life,” they affirm.
“We want to change our scenario slowly… chip away at this city and at least make a little dent. We have few more years left in us, so we’ll keep working towards that hope,” they laugh.
Project Details
Name: Sarvasva
Location: Eastern suburbs, Mumbai, India
Client: Private
Architect: SPASM Design Architects
Design Team: Sangeeta Merchant, Aishwarya Kelshikar, Akanksha Dalvi, Divyesh Kargathra, Nafees Ansari, Sanjeev Panjabi
Collaborators: Rajeev Shah & Associates (Structural consultant); Econ pollution control consultants (MEP Consultants); CMG Construction (Civil contractor); Professional Landscape Designs (Landscape consultant); Samunder Pools (Swimming pool consultant); Yograj services (Automation system); Hi Tech Aircon (HVAC system); Sound Decisions (AV consultant); Wienerberger (Terracotta panels); Alstrong (ACP panels); Ved enterprises (Façade installation); Vitrum (Window agency); Shree Satyam Wood work (Carpentry); Ram Electrical contractor (Electrical agency); Pandey works (Painting); Rameshwar works (Civil work agency); Chinna Swammy welding works (Metal Fabrication); Vitrum, Hybec Lights, Porada, Boconcept, Flexform, Living Divani, Ochhio, Herman miller, Poliform, Ditre Italia, Poltrona frau, B&B Italia, Jaipur Rugs, Loomcraft. Alstrong, Wienerberger, Hitachi Elevators, Express Elevators, Hallmark Elevators (Manufacturers)
Year of Completion: 2024
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