GoodEarth Home Walkthrough - Sreedevi Ajayan

Hi , I'm I've been living here in Good since 2019 , April .

Um I'm associated with good .

I was associated with Good for a very brief period of eight months .

Uh I worked as an architect .

Uh that was a Natasha and all were leading the team .

Uh This was in 2012 , 2013 .

Then I moved out due to some personal reasons .

Then we came back here because of my daughter's school proximity uh wanting to live in this community multiple reasons .

Um I was living in residence for the past two years and we've moved now to mosaic to this house .

Uh So the first time we say we came to see this house , uh first , we couldn't really spot it .

Uh But the beauty of it was when you keep coming , like this narrow way , you keep coming , coming , coming , you feel you're coming into this one small cave and I'd like to welcome you home .

Now , when we came the first time and then we entered that light kind of really worked for us .

We were very thrilled to see a very bright house here .

Uh So I think it was a light that made us want to consider this house .

Uh And also the fact that everything was right here , the living , the dining , the kitchen , it felt like you could live here completely as per the plan .

Uh as the model house , the kitchen is an open kitchen .

And we've continued to keep it as open as we can also because we like not to isolate the kitchen .

We feel it's a very integral part of the house .

And also it's a place where we spend a lot of time .

Uh less of me and more of the father and child , they both cook a lot together .

So we don't like the kitchen being very disconnected .

And this platform really helped to keep it open .

Also , the idea of having everything open is something which I truly believe in makes it very easy for anybody who's not familiar with my kitchen to come and cook in it .

Um Yeah .

So that was one and the choice of white counter and white on the wall was also to make it look much lighter and not very cramped .

So yeah , the kitchen , it's to start through as a place where anybody can walk in and still feel part of the house , like everything happening in the living or the dining , you're part of it .

So that's how this kitchen was done .

So from the kitchen , uh you step out into this utility .

So this utility was a bit of an experiment like uh we tried to get a small done here .

But ever since we've moved it's been raining so we haven't really managed to use it .

Well , except for once , twice .

Yeah .

Yeah .

So this is , uh , the one bedroom that we have in the ground floor .

Uh , probably the coolest room also for multiple reasons .

Uh , one I think this is more shaded than all the other rooms .

Um , so , yeah .

So what you see here is again a very old furniture from Trina's grandparents place .

Uh And this is where I spend a little bit of time to do a little bit if I have to work .

This is like my study .

Um Yeah , so that's that about this room .

So the stair uh yeah , this is one element uh about this house which I feel is a very different one from the regular good earth homes .

This is like one straight flight of steps up .

It kind of also defines the axis of the house .

It's like one straight bogey kind of house .

Even the stair adds to it .

It's like that .

So at multiple places , we had to work to figure out how to break that linearity .

This house has uh as far as pass passages are concerned , room alignment is concerned .

So , but yeah , initially , there was a little bit of not happy with the stairs , but I think we've grown to like it .

Uh So this is uh my daughter's room maya .

Um I personally don't believe in building all of the storage or shelf that you need for the house at the first go .

What is basic necessity is your wardrobe that has been built ?

Everything else I feel has to organically come .

You have to live in that space , understand what you need and then you build .

So which is why you see most of her things are everywhere .

We're still figuring out what works for her .

Does a chest of draw work for her or is it an open shelf thing that works for her ?

So I wanted her to live in the space a little bit , then observe what she needs and then come up with that kind of woodwork .

Um For her , the bed , we've kept it like a low floor platform bed also because I've , I mean when if you look at Children , they're always playing in the room and if you have a bed , which stands up , I feel it kind of kills the size of the room that you get to play .

So this works perfectly also with respect to play and also the kind of sleepovers the kids have here , we have four or five of them coming .

So I kind of put them all together in one room .

Um And this also takes away a little bit of my own worry about her falling off the bed .

So I think multiple reasons put together this platform worked for her and for us .

Yeah .

So this is the master bedroom .

Uh What I like about the room is the whole wardrobe storage happens at the entrance and you get the whole room as a clean space .

She has been working from the bedroom .

So uh the amount of light that comes into the room and the fact that we have cross ventilation uh really works as a workspace and also as a bedroom .

Uh we've tried to keep woodwork as light as possible so that it doesn't come into the space and become like an important feature to see .

I believe those things as much as not seen is best .

It is there for a utilitarian , for a purpose , it can be there .

Uh So , yeah , so we've kept it to the minimum of bedroom bed and a study table and as late as possible .

Yeah .

So uh this , this living space , I mean , see like how the whole house is .

Uh every room is very , very bright , I think .

Uh that's a very , that's a positive of the house .

And that's also something we really like about the house .

As far as this living is concerned , we have light coming from the terrace , we have light coming from the skylight and there's this big window uh which also brings in light to this living space .

Um And it , and this whole wall kind of adds another color and texture to the space .

It kind of binds it together .

We are still figuring out how the space has to work , we put whatever furniture we have .

Yeah , this will be where TV and entertainment will be .

But uh this is a space still trying to figure out what is happening .

And I think that is how houses should be , right ?

You don't define a space and it has to work only in a particular way .

And these homes give you that freedom .

It's given you a space with light color and all of that .

So it's up to you to keep changing and keeping it however you want .

We have moved in with pretty much all the previous furniture we had .

And a lot of it is what you call hand me down from Trina's grandparents , my parents .

So uh except for few furniture which we bought , most of it are from our ancestral homes and a lot of stories associated with it .

So , yeah , so and I also believe in furniture which can keep moving .

I don't , I don't like a space to look permanently in a particular way .

I mean , even in my practice , something clients don't have fixed stuff in your space .

I mean , the dynamics of being able to move things around and have a different looking living room every other year or something is beautiful , I feel .

So the dining room uh opens out two ways , one goes to the veranda .

We also have this opening which opens out into this garden , uh being a corner plot .

Uh We've had the advantage of a garden which runs like an elk .

And this also is the reason why we have so much light inside the house .

All the brightness is also from here .

So the spillover from the dining kind of also connects to this uh covered sit out space .

We have , I think the beauty of all these good earth homes is having this outdoor outdoor space .

So to have a huge garden like what this corner houses have and not have a space to come out and sit to did not make sense .

So if you have a garden for you to be really enjoying it , I think you need that space to come out to .

And what we are hoping is the space will become that active space of the house at some point because uh we just , we've just started growing into this house and the growing .

And so I think we hope it will work out at some point and have a lot of activity in the outdoors .