True Black Coffee Bar / NaaV Studio

When Rohith and Vikas—founders of a well-loved coffee brand—approached us for their newest outpost in Hyderabad, their brief was clear: each location must evoke its own sensibility while staying minimal and grounded. This branch would be no different—yet entirely distinct.

Set in a landscape that reminisces about residential properties of yesteryear Kerala, dating back to the 80s when houses were placed in the middle of a relatively larger plot, which not only accommodates a private garden, a kitchen garden, and holds flora and fauna that were more than ornamental purposes.

We distribute the program of this house into two parallel brick volumes, articulated by an elongated courtyard. In the northern strip, we locate the private areas (bathrooms and bedrooms), and in the southern strip, we place the social areas (living room, dining room, kitchen).

The genesis for the mixed-use residential Ellen Browning Building arose when a group of close friends considered how they could preserve their relationships during their last years. Co-housing, with its spirit of community and shared living spaces, provided the answer. By developing their own residential building, the friends would be able to balance togetherness with the independence of urban living. The site they selected is set within a vibrant retail and commercial district along Division Street in Southeast Portland. Like many seniors, choosing to live in a walkable, amenity-supported and health-care rich city is an aging-in-place strategy.