Casa Terra
A sea-facing apartment stripped back to its structure and rebuilt around a single continuous horizon of travertine and teak.
Project information
- Location
- Mumbai, Maharashtra
- Year
- 2025
- Type
- Private residence
- Area
- 4,200 sq ft
- Scope
- Interior architecture, joinery, lighting, styling
- Status
- Completed
Design concept
A horizon held at eye level
The apartment arrived as a warren of small rooms turned away from the water. We removed every non-structural partition on the western half of the plan and replaced them with a single 14-metre spine of teak joinery that carries storage, services and the kitchen inside one uninterrupted line.
Everything that could be low was made low. Seating, sills and the stone shelf that runs the length of the living room all sit within 200mm of each other, so the eye reads one horizontal band across the plan and the sea beyond it.
Colour was withheld almost entirely. The palette is drawn from the materials themselves — the ochre in the travertine, the red in oiled teak, the grey-green of raw silk — and daylight is allowed to do the rest of the work across the day.
Material palette
What the room is made of
Travertine
Unfilled, honed. Used for the continuous shelf and both bathrooms.
Teak
Solid and veneered, oiled. Quarter-sawn for a quiet, even grain.
Raw silk
Grey-green, hand-loomed. Curtains, cushions and the study wall.
Architecture
Decisions in plan and section
Plan
Three bedrooms reduced to two; the released area became a 5.2m wide living room with an uninterrupted western aspect.
Ceiling
Services consolidated into a 260mm perimeter band so the central ceiling plane could stay flat and unbroken.
Threshold
Every internal door is full height and flush, set into the joinery line rather than into the wall.
Interior
Decisions you can touch
Kitchen
A single 3.4m island in honed stone, with all appliances behind teak tambour that closes the room down after dinner.
Light
No downlights in living areas. Wall-washing from a recessed cove plus three points of warm task light.
Textiles
Undyed linen and raw silk in five weights, all within one tonal step of the plaster.
Gallery
Casa Terra in sequence
Project facts
Project facts
14 months
Duration
2 bed, 3 bath, 1 study
Rooms
11 bespoke pieces
Joinery
4 walls removed
Structural
Demo project — client and figures are sample content
