Excerpt: Teachers Home, designed by Nestcraft Architecture, envisions a residence that nurtures the users’ mental, psychological, and emotional well-being. Rooted in simplicity and meaning, the design integrates open, light-filled spaces, informal reading nooks, and garden pockets. Natural materials and flexible indoor-outdoor areas reflect the values of care, learning, creativity, and calm that define a teacher’s life.
Project Description
[Text as submitted by architect] As Architects, we are supposed to justify the right of a client – teacher couple, to have designated space for their self nourishment – mentally, psychologically and emotionally so that their wellness is supposed to light up the lives of countless students/ future generations. For the architecture of a residence owned by a teacher couple, the house would need to reflect the teacher’s values: practicality, learning, hobbies, creativity, and calm.
Teachers are not just deliverers of knowledge-they are motivators, guides, mentors, and emotional anchors in the classroom/society. The psychology of a teacher is grounded in caring, cognition, and commitment. A teacher’s mental and emotional world is shaped by a passion for helping others learn, and the daily psychological work they do is both deeply demanding and profoundly meaningful.
We imagined the teacher’s home should balance simplicity with meaning thus the spaces are designed as open, natural light filled and intellectually stimulating. We have tried to identify multiple informal reading nooks and garden pockets as reading and gardening are the hobbies of the family. Bricks, stone and wood are used to reflect authenticity and warmth. A compact front porch and garden with benches are introduced where there is a sit-out also encouraging interaction with the visitors. The sit out acts as an indoor-outdoor transitional space which can be used for small group tutoring, book clubs, or planning sessions and also as the family gathering space on the ground floor.
The living room, the dining room and the courtyard are double height spatial volumes with skylights providing natural light in an ever changing pattern throughout the day. The Heart of the Home is a dedicated study space/library with Bookshelves filled with educational texts and personal favorites. This space is in the staircase mid landing overlooking the inner courtyard of the home. An inviting dining area for discussions with fellow educators or students, thus an open planning is adopted here where the dining table/space completely opens up to the kitchen through a breakfast counter which can be used for quick meals and snacking.
The inner courtyard which is a double height with skylight above conceives a minimal prayer space and planter pots opens to a patio with a garden where one can read, write, or tutor students informally, is provided which is accessed through a sliding window through the inner courtyard. This offers space to breathe and grow since the teachers need freedom to innovate, try new methods, and continue learning.
A house for a teacher is meaningful when it provides not just a space to live and work, but a safe, welcoming, and empowering space where teachers can live out their purpose, grow in their profession, and feel at home every single day and provides room for their creativity and experimentation. The Architecture introduced reflects the soul of the teacher owners, places to nurture.
Drawings
Images
