The Adyar Riverside House

The family had lived with sandbags at the front door every October for years before they called us. It was just what October meant. The old house sat barely above street level, a stone's throw from the Adyar river, and the first heavy spell of the season always found its way across the threshold.

We raised the new plinth well clear of the historical flood line and pulled the living spaces around a small internal courtyard, so the house draws its own cross-breeze instead of depending on open windows facing the street. This monsoon, for the first time, the family sat out on the veranda and watched the rain instead of the water level.