Thinnai always has a special place in my heart. Although I grew up in modern homes, my mom never failed to inculcate the importance of Thinnai and its variety of uses through our travel across TN,Kerala, Karnataka & storytelling! Grew up admiring it in silence & slyly adding a Thinnai area to most of my designs in Architecture😅
Although Thinnai is a Tamil word and the right one to be used is Charupadi in Malayalam !
Loved this post! We need more such liminal spaces between the domestic and public spaces in our contemporary architecture. Balconies are there of course but one feels at such a remove, especially the higher you are up in the sky
Thanks to @madhumitha for sharing this. This triggered a lot of nostalgia. My grandma's house used to be in a compound/a smaller version of a colony, which was previously the quarters for the British Garrison. And every house had its verandah. That's where most moments of my childhood was framed. Someday I will share about it. Thanks for this trigger of warm nostalgia, Minaz. Keep writing. Keep sharing. Keep going.
First up, gosh I didn’t know there were so many different names for what we know here to be a verandah. When growing up our home had three verandahs, the back which measured approximately 3x3 metres, the side verandah 3x6 metres which we would enclose with canvas blinds to enable a place for the children to sleep on canvas stretchers whenever we had extra visitors, and the front verandah which was a bit more fancy and also had a canvas blind to keep the heat out, or be used as an extension to the front living room when our parents had parties in the summer. This area was about 3x4 metres. As you can imagine our home was quite large being 23 squares , although by todays standards not quite so big, our present home is 30square, far too big for the two of us, but despite that we use every bit of it.
The description of your home sounds delightful! It's also interesting to see the word 'veranda' has travelled with the colonisers to Australia. How does one translate 'squares' to square metres?
Thanks Shital. I understand that feeling of losing humane spaces. Designers need to carry traditional wisdom of space design with them and bylaws need to support them
Thinnai always has a special place in my heart. Although I grew up in modern homes, my mom never failed to inculcate the importance of Thinnai and its variety of uses through our travel across TN,Kerala, Karnataka & storytelling! Grew up admiring it in silence & slyly adding a Thinnai area to most of my designs in Architecture😅
Although Thinnai is a Tamil word and the right one to be used is Charupadi in Malayalam !
Good to know. So many names for the shared comfort of a liminal space :)
Loved this post! We need more such liminal spaces between the domestic and public spaces in our contemporary architecture. Balconies are there of course but one feels at such a remove, especially the higher you are up in the sky
Thank you for reading and your comments. I resonate with your thoughts.
Thanks to @madhumitha for sharing this. This triggered a lot of nostalgia. My grandma's house used to be in a compound/a smaller version of a colony, which was previously the quarters for the British Garrison. And every house had its verandah. That's where most moments of my childhood was framed. Someday I will share about it. Thanks for this trigger of warm nostalgia, Minaz. Keep writing. Keep sharing. Keep going.
First up, gosh I didn’t know there were so many different names for what we know here to be a verandah. When growing up our home had three verandahs, the back which measured approximately 3x3 metres, the side verandah 3x6 metres which we would enclose with canvas blinds to enable a place for the children to sleep on canvas stretchers whenever we had extra visitors, and the front verandah which was a bit more fancy and also had a canvas blind to keep the heat out, or be used as an extension to the front living room when our parents had parties in the summer. This area was about 3x4 metres. As you can imagine our home was quite large being 23 squares , although by todays standards not quite so big, our present home is 30square, far too big for the two of us, but despite that we use every bit of it.
The description of your home sounds delightful! It's also interesting to see the word 'veranda' has travelled with the colonisers to Australia. How does one translate 'squares' to square metres?
I used to love the veranda in our Bangalore house. Now I stay in an apartment and reading your post brought back many memories! Nice images Minaz
Thanks Shital. I understand that feeling of losing humane spaces. Designers need to carry traditional wisdom of space design with them and bylaws need to support them
How I crave for space in our tiniest of, most expensive of homes :/ Just seeing the pictures here had such a calming effect on me!
I totally understand. We should strive for humane habitats for all. More important than roads and flyovers for cars.
Absolutely :/
Thanks for reading Amit and for your kind words. Your granny's house sounds fascinating. Do write about it. Would love to know more.