Mi Casa

Project overview

Mi Casa is a large sustainable residential community on about 62 acres at Kanakapura, on the southern edge of Bengaluru. The plan is for 62 villas of roughly 7,000 to 10,000 sq ft each, set among landscaped green space and natural and designed water bodies, with a community centre, clubhouse and swimming pools shared by residents. The development is planned over about six years and is in its initial stage.

PBJ Infra’s work began at the front door. The first completed milestone is the main entrance gateway — a sculptural, free-form boundary wall with a continuous wave profile, a large circular portal ringed by a brick voussoir arch, curved flanking pillars and the entrance gates. The form is deliberately organic, closer to the shells PBJ builds at AKAYA Resort than to a conventional compound wall, and it carries the development’s nautilus emblem at its centre. PBJ is contracted for every phase of the development: preparing the 62-acre site, then the villas, the community centre and clubhouse, the pools, the water bodies and the landscaping.

It draws on PBJ’s ferro concrete design capability — building a curved, sculptural surface over blockwork and a shaped armature, then rendering and finishing it by hand.

Client requirement

The developer wanted an entrance that would set Mi Casa apart from the row of conventional gated projects along Kanakapura Road — a piece of built identity rather than a boundary wall with a signboard. The brief called for a flowing, sculptural form, a strong central feature to carry the brand emblem, and gates that matched the language of the wall, all delivered quickly enough not to hold up the wider project.

The challenge

A free-form wall has no repeating module. Every curve of the wave profile and the full circle of the central portal had to be set out on site, built up in blockwork, and trued to a smooth surface before rendering. The circular opening needed a proper arch ring — built here as a brick voussoir band — to carry the load around it. And the whole feature had to be finished to a clean, sculptural standard in about two months.

PBJ’s approach

PBJ built the wall as a shaped masonry-and-render structure rather than a cast one. The wave profile and the portal were set out full size, raised in blockwork with the circular opening formed and its brick ring turned, then coated and modelled in successive render layers to the final flowing surface. The pillars and gate framing were built into the wall line, and the finish was carried out in two tones — white across the field, ochre on the raised forms and the portal ring — to read the way the design intended.

Construction / execution

Site clearing and setting out; foundations and the blockwork wall following the wave profile; the circular portal formed with its brick voussoir arch; flanking pillars and gate posts; then render in layers, the two-tone finish, and the hanging of the entrance gates. The full scope ran to roughly two months.

Result so far

A finished sculptural entrance for Mi Casa — a single flowing wall with a circular portal at its heart and matching gates — built and finished by PBJ Infra in about two months, and the first completed piece of a six-year, 62-acre programme.

Build something similar

Planning a sculptural entrance, a free-form wall or a branded gateway feature? Talk to PBJ about a ferro-concrete project →