Urban infill housing faces a persistent problem: as cities densify, new buildings block light and air from their own interiors. The House of Voids in New Delhi, India, designed by Malik Architecture under architects Arjun Malik and Kamal Malik, tackles this challenge head-on. Completed in March 2019 with a surface area of 1,394 square meters, this house carves out a network of courtyards, fissures, and skylights that pull daylight deep into the building. For architects and homeowners dealing with tight urban sites, the void-as-design strategy offers a way to build at higher densities without sacrificing livability. The approach aligns with nature integrated architecture and passive house principles that prioritize occupant well-being through spatial design rather than mechanical systems.
The Urban Context: Delhi’s Changing Neighborhood Fabric
Delhi’s existing neighborhoods have traditionally been defined by two-storey houses set back from tree-lined roads, buffered from the street by front gardens. New planning regulations have altered this relationship, permitting taller structures that consume greater lot area with reduced setbacks. The resulting urban condition creates a sensation of buildings imposing themselves on the street. Inside these homes, the absence of green cover, courtyards, and natural light becomes palpable.
The design team observed that the ground plane – formerly garden, patio, and living spaces – has been given over to parking. This eliminates any meaningful connection between the house and the street outside. The House of Voids re-evaluates the building typology prescribed by current guidelines and adapts it to re-establish the sensation of the pre-existing urban condition. By how architecture firms like Alias Architecture advance passive house design, similar strategies of rethinking building form to prioritize environmental performance are gaining traction across the industry.
Regulatory Pressure on Site Design
New Delhi’s building regulations now permit taller structures and greater floor area ratios, but these changes came without complementary requirements for open space or daylight access. The result is that many new homes in established neighborhoods are deep-plan buildings with limited exterior exposure. The House of Voids demonstrates that regulatory constraints do not have to result in dark interiors – but achieving good daylight requires deliberate spatial strategies from the earliest design phases.
| Traditional Delhi House | Modern Delhi House (Typical) | House of Voids Approach |
|---|---|---|
| 2 storeys, set back from street | 4-5 storeys, reduced setbacks | Multiple storeys with carved voids |
| Front garden buffer | Ground floor parking | Ground plane excised, garden continues through house |
| Courtyards on all sides | Minimal side setbacks | Internal labyrinthine voids and fissures |
| Natural cross-ventilation | Mechanical ventilation required | Vertical shafts for stack effect |
| Direct sunlight to most rooms | Deep floor plates, dark cores | Skylights and fissures bring light to basement |
The Void Network: How Light Moves Through the Building
The central design strategy is a network of labyrinthine voids running laterally and vertically through the house. These voids function as light catchers and thermal chimneys. Skylights at the roof level channel sunlight into deep fissures that penetrate through all floors. Some of these voids extend from the roof all the way to the basement level, where offices receive daylight that would be impossible in a conventional deep-plan building.
An opening in the ground floor lets sunlight reach the basement offices. The upper floors cantilever over the courtyard to provide shade at lower levels while still admitting light from above. Stone screens filter sunlight, creating changing patterns throughout the day. The central courtyard runs vertically through the house, visually connecting terraces on different levels while pulling daylight into the building’s core.
Void Types and Their Functions
- Central courtyard: A vertical shaft running through all floors, functioning as the primary light catcher and visual connector between levels
- Deep fissures: Narrow, slot-like openings that bring light into interior rooms without sacrificing wall space
- Skylights: Roof-level openings that channel direct sunlight into the void network
- Cantilevered overhangs: Upper floors that project over the courtyard to provide shade to lower-level openings
- Stone screens: Filtered light through perforated surfaces that reduce glare while admitting daylight
These void types work together as a system. The central courtyard provides the main light source, the fissures distribute light laterally into rooms, skylights feed the system from above, stone screens modulate intensity, and the house within a house design concept – where smaller volumes nest inside larger ones – applies to the way these voids create layered interior spaces.
Street Reconnection: Excising the Ground Plane
The most radical move in the House of Voids is the excision of the lower sections of the building. Rather than occupying the entire ground plane with parking and entry functions, the architects carved away portions of the ground floor to allow the street to continue visually through the house. This creates a deep garden that connects the street to the rear of the site, propagating downward into the basement office and upward through the series of fragmented courtyards and fissures.
This re-establishes a meaningful connection to the street outside – something lost in standard infill development. The open yet shaded ground floor allows views through the property, maintaining the visual permeability that traditional Delhi houses enjoyed. The feeling of enclosure without isolation is a hallmark of well-designed courtyards, similar to what cottage house design architecture and character achieves at a smaller scale by arranging rooms around a central gathering space.
Continuity of Garden and Building
The deep garden propagates through the site in three dimensions – horizontally at ground level, downward into the basement through light wells, and upward through the courtyard network. This three-dimensional landscape means that occupants at every level have visual or physical access to planted space. The basement offices, typically the darkest and least desirable spaces in an urban house, receive light from the ground-floor opening and look into planted fissures.
Spatial Experience: Living Between Solid and Void
The living spaces on the first floor are supported by a large stilt structure that elevates them above the ground plane. From this level, the courtyard becomes the organizing element. The living room opens onto an outdoor terrace that bridges the interior and the void. Sunlight filtering through stone screens creates shifting light patterns that change the character of each room throughout the day. This interplay of solid mass and carved void creates what the architects describe as a network of labyrinthine spaces.
Key spatial strategies include:
- Upper floors cantilevered over the courtyard to provide shade and visual layering
- Living spaces organized around the central void rather than in a linear sequence
- Terraces at multiple levels, all visually connected through the courtyard
- Stone screens that filter light while maintaining privacy from neighbors
- Skylights positioned above stairwells and circulation paths for wayfinding by daylight
The architectural language of the house – heavy stone masses contrasted with open voids – draws on traditional Indian stepwells and haveli courtyards. When you learn about Boxwood House and other modern approaches to residential architecture, you see similar principles of mass and void manipulation applied to different contexts. The House of Voids translates these historical forms into a contemporary urban language suited to Delhi’s current regulatory environment.
Light Quality Through the Day
The orientation of the voids changes the quality of light in each part of the house at different times of day. East-facing fissures capture morning light. The central courtyard receives overhead light at midday. West-facing openings catch afternoon sun. The stone screens soften direct sunlight into diffuse ambient light that reduces glare and heat gain. The network of voids ensures that every room receives some natural light at some point during the day, even in the basement. This principle of designing with light rather than against it echoes what rear window house minimalist architecture demonstrates in a completely different context.
Thermal Performance of Voids
The void network serves a thermal function in addition to its daylighting role. The central courtyard acts as a thermal chimney, drawing hot air upward and out of the building through the stack effect. Cool air enters through the ground-level openings and the shaded lower floors, replacing the rising warm air. This natural ventilation cycle reduces the need for mechanical cooling during Delhi’s long hot season. The deep garden at ground level provides evaporative cooling from planted surfaces, dropping the temperature of incoming air before it reaches occupied spaces. Stone surfaces within the voids absorb heat during the day and release it at night, moderating the diurnal temperature swing that Delhi experiences, especially during the spring and autumn months when daily highs can vary by 10 to 15 degrees Celsius.
The stone screens that filter light into the voids also serve a privacy function. In dense urban neighborhoods where adjacent buildings are close, these screens allow daylight to enter while preventing direct sightlines from neighboring properties. The perforation pattern of each screen varies by location and orientation, with denser patterns on the south and west sides where solar gain is highest. This site-specific calibration of the screens shows the level of detail required for void-based architecture to perform well across all seasons.
Structural and Construction Details
The project completed in March 2019 with a surface area of 1,394 square meters. The client remained confidential throughout. Malik Architecture, led by Arjun Malik and Kamal Malik, served as the design architect, with a design team including Ketan Chaudhary, Ekta Naidu, Amay Gurkar, Suchi Tanna, Taaran Singh, and Kalpesh Pithwa. The main contractor was GSBA Builders Pvt. Ltd. Consultants covered structural engineering (Global Engineering Services, Suhas Gangan), HVAC (Aircon Engineers Pvt. Ltd.), and other disciplines (Lirio Lopez). Photography was done by Bharath Ramamrutham.
The structural system had to accommodate the extensive void network while maintaining load paths through the building. Cantilevered upper floors, large openings in the ground plane, and the central courtyard all required careful engineering to transfer loads around the voids. This is the hidden complexity of void-based design: what looks like simple subtraction demands sophisticated structural coordination.