Solid State

Harnessing the elements of nature — stone, water, air and light — the stunning edifice is brought to life by architect Soenke Hoof ’s unusual treatment

- Meenakshi Shankar

Interestingly, the brief that came to Soenke wasn’t to build the house but to bring home a completely new avatar for the basement. The space needed to harness elements of the earth and capture the reflections of the moving sky on still and rippling water. Soenke believes in breathing life into spaces and his work reflects this. The pool and spa, in the basement, had to come alive with light, shadow, line and space. “The challenge was to create a space that rested on my design sensibility — which doesn’t fully give itself away at first. It wants to be discovered, surprising you along the way. Conforming to this, a space infused with clean lines and a reduced palette of materials emerged,” Soenke elaborates on the almost ethereal design.