Most farmhouse architecture in Delhi NCR treats land as a backdrop — something to look at from inside. Nandavrat Farmhouse, set on a one-acre plot in Dera Mandi, started from the opposite instinct. The clients, two brothers building a shared home for their families and parents, wanted to belong to the land, not simply occupy it.

That meant restraint. Rather than maximising built area, the brief called for a minimal footprint, keeping the site as one continuous green field — the real heart of the home, not the leftover space around it. Every communal function — living, dining, gathering — was concentrated on the ground floor as transparent, glass-enclosed pavilions opening directly onto lawns and a water body. There's no ambiguity about where family life happens in this house: it happens outdoors, with a roof over it.

Privacy was solved by lifting it, not walling it in. All bedrooms sit on the upper floor, wrapped in a perforated brick screen — a breathable jaali that filters harsh sun, softens heat gain, and throws shifting shadow patterns through the day. Deliberately, there are no balconies. Removing them wasn't an oversight; it was the point. Family members are pulled back down into the shared garden rather than given a private perch to retreat to.

A sculptural central staircase anchors the plan, carrying circulation, daylight, and sightlines through the house's core, while service functions stay compact at the centre — freeing the edges of every floor to stay open and connected to the landscape.

This residential architecture project in Dera Mandi, Delhi isn't built to impress from the outside. It's built to disappear into the site it sits on — proof that the most generous thing a home can do for a joint family is get out of the way of the garden between them.