Kishore Farmhouse —
A Courtyard Home
in Perithalmanna, Kerala
A 4,500 sq.ft courtyard farmhouse that draws from South Indian domestic traditions and the specific light of Perithalmanna. Completed 2026.
A Farmhouse Built
for One Place
Kishore Farmhouse is a 4,500 sq.ft courtyard farmhouse in Perithalmanna, Kerala, designed by Design Intend and completed in 2026. The building draws from centuries of South Indian domestic architecture — the central courtyard as the organising element, hand-laid brick jaali screens filtering the Kerala light, teak joinery, terracotta roof tiles, and lime-washed walls. It was designed for the specific land, the specific climate, and the specific family who would live in it. Nothing about it could exist anywhere else.
Perithalmanna sits in Malappuram district, a part of Kerala with a particular quality of light and heat that differs from the coast. The design responds to this directly. The courtyard pulls in natural ventilation. The jaali screens diffuse harsh afternoon light without blocking air movement. The roof overhang is calibrated for the local rainfall intensity during monsoon. These are not aesthetic choices. They are functional responses to the site, made to last.
This is also one of Design Intend's furthest projects from the Hosur studio. The studio regularly works across Karnataka, and the Kishore Farmhouse extended that reach into Kerala. Working in a different state means adapting to different material traditions, different contractors, different regulatory requirements. The project proved the studio can deliver its standard of execution outside its primary region.
What the
Client Wanted
Kishore had a large piece of land in Perithalmanna and had wanted to build a farmhouse on it for years. Not a holiday home — a proper residence, designed to feel rooted in Kerala, built to a standard the family would still be proud of in 20 years. The site had existing trees and a natural slope that had to be worked with rather than levelled away.
The brief had two specific requirements that shaped everything. First, a courtyard at the centre of the house — Kishore had grown up in a traditional home with a nadumuttam and wanted that sense of a sky-connected interior. Second, water. A pond, a water feature, something that brought the sound and feel of water into the daily experience of the house. Both of these are ancient instincts in Kerala domestic architecture. The design did not reinvent them. It resolved them for the way a family lives today.
"I had a big piece of land in Perithalmanna and I always wanted to build a farmhouse on it. I did not want a standard house. I wanted something that looks like it belongs to Kerala."
— Kishore, Client • Perithalmanna, Kerala, 2026How the Building
Was Resolved
The plan is organised around a central courtyard — a water court with lily ponds that sits at the geometric and experiential heart of the house. All primary rooms open to it. Morning light enters from the east, filtered through the courtyard volume. By afternoon, the courtyard channels the prevailing westerly breeze through the interior. The house stays cooler than a conventional plan of the same area, without air conditioning running continuously.
The brick jaali screens are the building's most visible element. They are hand-laid — not precast panels, not laser-cut metal. Each screen was built by local Kerala masons using a traditional bonding pattern. The screens wrap the exterior on the south and west faces, where afternoon heat is strongest. They provide shade while allowing full air movement. At night, with interior lights on, the pattern they cast on the courtyard floor changes with the wind. That effect was not designed. It happened. The best things in a building often do.
The central water court with lily ponds solves two things: it provides evaporative cooling to the courtyard air, and it gives the house a focal point that is never the same twice. The ponds are shallow — 300mm — and planted with local aquatic species. Frogs have arrived on their own. The ecosystem around the ponds is now self-sustaining, which was not specified in the brief but is the kind of outcome that happens when a building is placed right in its landscape.
The roof is terracotta tile on a timber structure, with generous overhangs calibrated for Perithalmanna's rainfall. Interior walls are lime-washed — a finish that breathes with the humidity cycles of Kerala rather than fighting them. Teak was used for all primary joinery: doors, window frames, stair handrails. Teak in Kerala is not an affectation. It is the rational choice for a humid climate, available locally, and ages into something better than it started.
The House
in Photographs
What the Building
Is Made Of
Every material choice at Kishore Farmhouse was made for a specific climatic or functional reason. Nothing was chosen for visual effect alone. The list below is what was actually used.
"Chittrarasan visited the site three times before drawing anything. He understood how I wanted to use each part of the house and what I was trying to create. The house feels exactly right from the first day. The courtyard especially — the light changes through the day in a way I did not expect. I am very happy with this."
What This Project
Taught Us
Kishore Farmhouse was the most demanding project Design Intend had taken outside Hosur at that point. A different state, different local tradespeople, different material supply chains, a regulatory process I had not worked through before. Those constraints sharpened the design rather than limiting it.
The courtyard came first in the design. Before rooms, before dimensions, before materials. Once we decided the courtyard was the organising principle, everything else found its logic. That is what I find about traditional South Indian house forms — they encode centuries of knowledge about how to live in a particular climate. I did not replicate that knowledge. I used it as a starting point and worked out what it meant for this site, this family, and how they actually live now.
The brick jaali was a risk. Hand-laying a perforated screen of that area requires masons who know the technique and a client willing to accept the variation that comes with handwork. Kishore accepted it, and the result is something a precast panel could never be. The pattern has a slight irregularity that makes it feel alive. Two years after completion, it is the thing visitors notice first.
— Ar. Chittrarasan, Founder, Design Intend
Want to Build
Something Like This?
Talk to Ar. Chittrarasan directly about your farmhouse or residential project — in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, or anywhere in the region.
Design Intend serves Hosur, Krishnagiri, Attibele, Bagalur, Denkanikottai, Sarjapur Road, Bengaluru, and select projects across Tamil Nadu and Kerala. All projects led personally by Ar. Chittrarasan.