Villa Prakriti occupies a steep Sahyadri mountainside and follows the land's natural contours rather than flattening them. The house cascades down the slope with each level engaging the forest floor and canopy. Vegetation is treated as built form through defining green walls and interior courtyards that admit sky and forest into living spaces. Surfaces feature earthen textures and warm tones that mirror the mountain soil, creating a continuous relationship with the landscape. Photographs capture sunlight filtering through openings, producing shifting patterns of shadow and brightness that respond to weather and seasons, reinforcing a living, breathing connection to the forest.
Hidden among the forested slopes of India's Sahyadri Mountains sits something truly captivating. Villa Prakriti isn't your conventional mountain retreat-it's unTAG's love letter to the landscape around Igatpuri. The name alone tells the story: "Prakriti" means Mother Nature in Sanskrit. This 418-square-meter farmhouse doesn't fight the hillside; it flows with it, stepping down the natural contours like water finding its path through ancient rock formations over centuries.
Most architects see a sloping site and immediately think about how to flatten or tame it. unTAG took the opposite approach entirely. They let the 4,500-square-foot house cascade down the mountainside, each level finding its unique relationship with the forest floor below. The result feels less like construction and more like discovery, as if the building had always been there, waiting patiently beneath the dense canopy for someone to simply brush away the accumulated leaves.
The real magic happens in how plants become architecture here. Green walls don't just decorate spaces; they actively define them. Courtyards punch through the interior, bringing generous chunks of sky and forest canopy right into daily life. Earthen textures wrap every surface, their warm tones perfectly matching the rich mountain soil outside. Walking through these interconnected spaces feels like moving through layers of a living ecosystem rather than traditional, compartmentalized rooms.
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