A house is nurtured into a home through a quiet alchemy, shaped by labours of care, the unwavering passage of time and memories that gather like dust in its corners. Over time, the lives lived and moments accumulated within inconceivably infiltrate its physical structure. A patina, strengthening with the years, veils the house and subtly alters its presence in intangible ways. Soon, the frame falters, and the walls yield, descending blithely towards dereliction. Despite the physical damage wrought by time, the emotional heft of a ‘home’ seems to persist for the inheritor, in traces and in spaces.

Such was the case of a modest Lonavala residence that Mumbai-based architecture and design practice SHROFFLEóN was commissioned to redesign. While its physical shell had slipped into disrepair, the essence of the house, rooted in recollections of the client’s late mother, stood firm. In lieu of the more conventional path of pulling the damaged structure down, the Indian architects steered the project with a desire to conserve and a sense of continuation. Taking a call to keep the spatial setting intact, or as much of it as was possible, the architects render it anew with contemporary materials. The result, dubbed the House of Material and Character, is a dwelling where two distinct structural skeletons—the old and the new, preservation and innovation—coalesce.

“From the very beginning, the client was clear that while he wished for a complete rework spatially and materially, he did not want to build from scratch,” Kayzad Shroff, founder, SHROFFLEóN, says in a conversation with STIR. “The client wished for a continuation in some way, [one] that could preserve his mother’s memory in the home,” he adds. This foundation shaped the design process from the outset, aligning also with the architects’ ethos of celebrating context and the clients’ stories. SHROFFLEóN approached the renovation project as an act of remembrance, retaining the existing structural framework, with additions made only where function or vision demanded it. Recollections of the client’s mother’s favourite spaces in the house, such as the semi-open verandah and the rose garden, are preserved and given prominence, forming the emotional and spatial spine of the reimagined residential architecture.

The architectural language of the house is grounded in a robust yet refined structural clarity, drawing significantly from brutalist principles. Rather than masking its bones, the design stages them; the steel frames, raw stone walls, exposed concrete, black aluminium and glass compose a form that is deliberately unadorned, hence, honest in its tactility, and its structural and engineering features. The older shell, once fractured and weathered, is reinforced and juxtaposed with a new, light, linear and transparent skeletal frame. “We felt conceptually compelled to separate the old from the new—programmatically, aesthetically, volumetrically and materially,” Shroff tells STIR. “The details with which we have designed the skeleton [...] allow the materials to coexist with coherence while giving each other space,” he adds. The solidity of the old is equalised by the openness of the new, resulting in a fresh synergy between the fragments.

Inside the house, the living rooms, bedrooms, kitchen and washrooms hold their previous locations, preserving the original spatial arrangement. However, they undergo a thorough redesign in both spatial and visual dimensions, characterised by clean, linear volumes, enhanced daylight and a refined material palette that ties the residential interiors together. This restructuring, while enhancing flow, also creates a strong programmatic hierarchy; the private areas are nestled within the solid comfort of the older structure, while public spaces sprawl into the extensions. The ground floor, initially fractured across four uneven levels, is reworked into two clear planes, improving accessibility and circulation, especially for the elderly. The more public programs inhabit the lower levels to harness the increased height and the scenic views of the garden.

Additions such as a new dining area, an extra bedroom on the upper floor and a greenhouse at the rear end subtly shift the home's centre of gravity. Once centred around the compact, inward-facing core of the original structure, the house now gravitates toward its edges, towards natural light and landscape. The character of the dining space emerged as a ‘surprising delight’ for the architects. Flanked by the pool on one side and the greenhouse on the other, openness and a tranquil sense of balance permeate the area. The semi-open verandah, once a cherished corner for the client’s mother, is expanded to serve as both a transitional and gathering space—an anchor for the otherwise expansive home. Adjacent to the glass-partitioned porch, the living area now opens outward, becoming a part of the outside and vice versa.

Materiality in the House of Material and Character—one half of its didactic nomenclature—unsurprisingly forms the core of its architectural expression, anchoring memory while also looking forward. A refined palette, encompassing basalt stone for mass and groundedness, steel for structure and glass for transparency, fosters a dynamic conversation between solidity and openness. Full-height sliding windows with black aluminium frames invite the landscape in, while raw, tactile surfaces allow the house to age gracefully. The walls, ceilings, floors, windows and doors each have a unique material expression picked from the larger palette of stone, wood, concrete and steel. Through these characteristics, the architects aim to create individualism while making the elements appear like parts of a whole. “Character is a personality, a byproduct of materials and instrumental in the experience of any space. Character and material are two sides of the same coin,” Shroff reflects.

The conception of this interplay, however, was far from a linear journey. Connecting old masonry with new steel required intricate detailing and posed significant structural challenges. Wet and dry construction systems intersected at complex junctions, exacting challenging coordination between design and execution. The resultant integration, driven by a commitment to conservation and architectural expertise, honours both technical precision and emotional continuity.

The central question fuelling the project remains: how does one preserve the existing while fusing with the new and still maintain a hint of familiarity? House of Material and Character presents a compelling answer: through sensitive adaptive reuse, architectural clarity and an honest dialogue between memory and material. SHROFFLEóN’s approach bypasses conventional renovation architecture; it morphs into storytelling through the resultant spaces, where interventions stem from purpose and emotion. By retaining the original structure, reworking its flows and layering it with a contemporary vocabulary, the studio crafts a home that is both grounded and forward-looking. This project exemplifies SHROFFLEóN’s ethos of balancing bold architectural language with contextual empathy, allowing built environments to evolve into vessels of memory and experiences. “In terms of what we hope these forms aspire to: it is an innate sense of belonging—a timeless calm,” Shroff shares, outlining expression and ethos.