5. September - October 2010

INTERIOR
FROM A HILLTOP
Against the odds of surviving a nosebleed
Text: Sanjog Rai
The glassed “wall” reflects the variegated moods of the day.
THOUGH THE
LAND WAS
SMALL, THERE
WAS STILL
SERENITY—A
CERTAIN JE NE
SAIS QUOI—IN
BEING ABLE TO
SEE AS FAR AS
POSSIBLE...
www.spacesnepal.com 62
Deliberating one’s first house in Kathmandu
is tricky, even with the luxury of a few page
spreads. After all, how does one ramble on
about the experience without going knee-deep
into the intrinsic philosophy of the design and
injecting some context of its environment and
background; or, equally as important, without
scribing about the industry people you stumble
over? That’s a year’s worth of experience and
residual thoughts to condense. And if you, like me,
have had to slave through a fairly modest budget,
it’s tempting to sum it up as feeling relieved and
cheated at the end—one way or the other.
My definition of being cheated is like dining at a
restaurant with tasteless, commonplace food
and rude waiters, whilst being overcharged for
a bottle of carbonated drink. (Yes, thank you,
your breathtakingly skillful execution of pouring
a cheaply available drink into a glass certainly
justifies paying several times its price.) Just as
I overpaid my engineer, whose lack of thorough
input and imagination made my job much more
difficult; or the contractor, who had a poor grasp
September-October 2010
of intricate concepts, like a straight line, and
whose general idea of curing (a process where you
hydrate cement with water from 14 to 28 days)
was possibly waiting for the monsoon. He also ran
several different sites, none too well—I fired him
eventually. I guess most days it’s like working with
an eclectic crew of artists, inspired to peculiarly
reinterpret your every instruction.
I’m not an architect by profession (or expertise).
I work at a company (Abstract Studios) I started
with a friend, dealing with design and film in
general. Though distantly related, many in the
construction field would rightfully consider me
a layman (I much prefer “autodidact”). But I also
know I’m not singular here. Over the year, I’ve met
many who designed their own house as a move
fueled by frustration, rather than desperation.
Be it of the scores of houses that are derivative,
inflexible with budgets, or just onanistic on the
overzealous architects’ part, unmatched by a
similar level of aesthetic or structural clarity. Just
as there are good architects in the whiskey glass,
the other half is filled by ....never mind.