Copper House II Case Study: Plan, Roof and Monsoon (Studio Mumbai)

Copper House II is a private weekend house in Chondi, Maharashtra, designed and built by Studio Mumbai, the practice led by Bijoy Jain, and finished in 2010 or 2011 depending on the source. Its floor level was set from the mark the 2005 flood left on a pump house on the site. The soil dug for a well became the raised ground it stands on, and thin copper sheet wraps the upper rooms against the monsoon. This case study covers the brief, site, plan, section, materials, climate, reception and what designers in India can take from it.

Copper House II: the facts

Architects: Studio Mumbai, led by Bijoy Jain, working as architects and builders with the studio's own craftsmen. The sources we read do not name a project architect or a structural engineer.

Client: a couple from Mumbai, for a second home they use a few days each week (CCA). They are not named.

Location: Chondi, Maharashtra, in a clearing in a mango grove near a brook that floods each monsoon (CCA, Archilovers).

Dates: conceived after the 2005 flood. Carpenters' notebooks run from November 2009 to April 2011, and the CCA dates the project file 2009 to 2014. Completed in 2010 according to Archilovers and Architectuul, and in 2011 according to the Swiss Architectural Award's project list and Archinfo.

Type: private house, a weekend or second home, built around a courtyard.

Size: no site or floor area is published in the sources we read.

Status: a private home, not open to visitors. Drawings, models and photographs are held by the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), Montreal, in the Bijoy Jain fonds.

The brief and the client

The Canadian Centre for Architecture's record of the project gives the brief in one line: Copper House II is "the second residence of a couple from Mumbai, who visit the house for a few days each week." That is the whole programme as published: a house for two people, used in short stays, with two private rooms upstairs and shared living spaces below.

A weekend house sits empty for days at a time, so it has to look after itself through a monsoon. Most of the decisions described below are about water and weathering.

The project text published with the Swiss Architectural Award adds one personal detail: a massive rock given by the owner's mother is housed within the design. The sources do not say where it sits.

Copper House II location and site

The house stands in Chondi, Maharashtra. Archilovers' project page says "The home sits in a clearing within a dense grove of mango trees," and the CCA adds that the grove is "near a brook that floods each year during the monsoon."

According to the project description published by Yellowtrace (2015), the severe flood of 2005 left a high-water mark on an existing pump house, and that mark was used to set the datum for the house. The Modern House (2017) tells the same story: after the flood, the architects examined the mark on the pump house and used it as the basis for the design.

Copper House II architect: Studio Mumbai and Bijoy Jain

Studio Mumbai is the practice of Bijoy Jain. The CCA's description of the Bijoy Jain fonds says he was born in Mumbai in 1965, studied at Washington University in St. Louis (M.Arch 1990), returned to India in 1995 and opened Bijoy Jain Associates, and founded Studio Mumbai in 2000 "with many of the craftsmen who had been working with him since his return to India." Archinfo Finland gives 1995 as the founding year of Studio Mumbai Architects. We give both.

What makes the credit unusual is that the studio builds what it designs. The Swiss Architectural Award page describes Studio Mumbai as a "human infrastructure of skilled craftsmen and architects" who design and build directly, working ideas out through large mock-ups, models, material studies and drawings. For Copper House II the CCA holds the evidence: notebooks of carpenters' sketches and calculations dated November 2009 to April 2011, chiefly in Hindi, and four study models made at different stages of design in December 2010.

No project architect, engineer or craftsman is credited in the sources we read. The CCA's record names Adhvait Pandya and Mitul Desai in connection with its video of the house, without stating roles.

Concept and design ideas

The published descriptions agree on three ideas, all of them about water and ground:

Start with the well. "The project begins by the making of an artesian well," says the text on Archilovers and Architectuul. The soil from that excavation was used "to create a high ground for the house in case of flooding in the heavy monsoon."
Build around a court. With the excavated soil as the central fill, Yellowtrace says, the house grew around a court. Archilovers puts it as rooms "loosely arranged around a central space to create a protected courtyard."
Make the roof a second datum. Yellowtrace describes the copper roof as a continuous plane that "forms a secondary datum for the house": a second level line, above the one set by the flood.

The Swiss Architectural Award text adds that the court was thought of as the naalukettu, the central courtyard of the traditional Kerala house, and that the design moved from an enclosing form to one that opens outward to the landscape. Yellowtrace frames the same tension in one phrase: the house "seeks to understand the landscape it denies". It shuts out the flood and the encroaching grove while keeping views out to them.

Copper House II plan and zoning

As the Swiss Architectural Award and Yellowtrace texts describe it, the house is two blocks of slightly different width, separated at ground level by a stone-paved courtyard and joined above by the copper roof plane. The CCA calls the court "open-air" and places it "at the centre of the plan".

Ground floor: the main living space, which Yellowtrace calls "the deck of the house", and a family room, both opening onto the court and the landscape. The CCA says large horizontal windows here are sheathed in slatted ironwood and copper mesh.
Upper floor: two private rooms. The CCA describes "two boxy spaces upstairs": one with a master bedroom and study, the other a smaller bedroom. The Swiss Architectural Award text describes one with a bedroom and bath and one with an added study. These are close but not identical.
Around the house: stone paving laid in a line that loops around the house. Its undulations lead rainwater to the nearest exit point (Yellowtrace; Swiss Architectural Award).

Schematic zoning diagram of Copper House II, not the plan: at ground level two blocks of slightly different width stand either side of an open court paved in black basalt, with long low screened windows, a band of stone paving looping around the house with arrows showing rain led to the nearest exit, and mango trees around the clearing; at the upper level two copper-clad private rooms sit over the blocks with the court open to the sky between them, and notes give the room uses as the CCA and the Swiss Architectural Award texts describe them — How Copper House II is arranged: two blocks around an open basalt court, living below and two copper-clad private rooms above, with paving that leads rain away. Schematic, not to scale, from published descriptions. Diagram: MOA

This is a zoning diagram, not a floor plan. The sources do not say which block holds which room, or which way the house faces, so the diagram does not either. Students searching for the "copper house ii floor plan" will find the architect's drawings in the CCA's archive (see Visiting below) and the image gallery on ArchDaily, published in April 2012 with images courtesy of Studio Mumbai.

Section and structure: a floor set by the flood

Read from the ground up: the 2005 high-water mark sets the reference level (Yellowtrace). Soil from the well becomes an "artificial high ground" under the house (CCA). Pile foundations were put in, and Yellowtrace says the slab was cast "more than half a meter above the high-water line". Above that come the screened living spaces either side of the open court, then the two copper-clad rooms and the roof plane.

Schematic section principle of Copper House II: an existing pump house carries the 2005 high-water mark, drawn as a dashed red line across the site; soil from a well dug first forms a raised central mound; the house stands on pile foundations with its ground slab more than half a metre above the high-water line; two blocks with screened ground floor living spaces flank an open court whose basalt paving lets rain drain below the house; two copper-clad private rooms sit above, their roofs at one level; a brook that floods each monsoon lies nearby — The section principle: the 2005 flood mark sets the floor level, the well supplies the fill, and a copper-clad upper storey keeps the rain out. Schematic, not to scale, from published descriptions. Diagram: MOA

The sources give no structural system above the piles, no storey heights and no pile depths, so the diagram shows none. The only published dimension is the slab's height above the flood line, and that comes from a single source.

Materials and construction

Copper

The copper is the house's weatherproofing, not decoration. "The thin copper sheet is used to make the structure waterproof from the rains," says the Archilovers text. The CCA adds that the sheets covering the upper floor "will develop a verdigris over time, further concealing the house within its setting." In other words, the green patina is intended: the house is meant to fade into the grove as it weathers. For how metal roofs compare with RCC and clay tiles across Indian climates, see our guide to roofing materials by climate.

Stone, timber and plaster

Black basalt paves the court and lets rainwater drain through to below the house (CCA).
Ironwood and copper mesh sheath the long ground-floor windows, which the CCA says provides "a form of camouflage" while still giving views out.
Timber screens and windows: fine netting in crafted wooden frames, and sliding and folding wooden windows (Swiss Architectural Award; Yellowtrace).
Fluted glass diffuses light (Yellowtrace).
Celadon plaster: the walls carry a traditional plaster in a celadon colour, which Yellowtrace compares to skin and to crackled ceramic glaze.

The sources do not give the plaster mix, the frame timber, the copper's gauge or the structural material. For the wider palette of the coast, see our guide to building materials for Goa, Konkan and Mangaluru.

How it was built

Studio Mumbai's craftsmen built the house, and the CCA file keeps the working record: carpenters' sketches and calculations from November 2009, and study models from December 2010. The Swiss Architectural Award jury singled out this way of working; its chair, Mario Botta, said "what is striking at Studio Mumbai are the methods involved in the creative process."

Light, climate and the monsoon

Water runs through every published account of the house. Yellowtrace and the Swiss Architectural Award text name it in several forms: monsoon rain, the well, and the stream and pool beyond the house. The house deals with it at three levels: floodwater stays below the raised slab, rain on the court drains through the basalt, and rain around the house runs off along the looping paving.

Light is filtered rather than admitted directly. The Swiss Architectural Award text describes it as layered through netted screens in wooden frames, fluted glass, and sliding and folding windows that can be opened or closed as needed. The CCA holds a short video of the interior courtyard during a rain shower, recorded for its 2014 exhibition.

No measured data on temperature, humidity or ventilation has been published that we could find, and the sources say nothing about services. For keeping water out of an ordinary house in each Indian climate, our guide to waterproofing by climate covers roofs, walls and plinths.

Timeline from 2005 to 2015 for Copper House II: the 2005 flood leaves a high-water mark on the site's pump house; carpenters' notebooks run from November 2009 to April 2011; study models date from December 2010; a shaded band marks completion in 2010 according to Archilovers and Architectuul or 2011 according to the Swiss Architectural Award project list and Archinfo; ArchDaily publishes the house in April 2012 and Studio Mumbai wins the Swiss Architectural Award in 2012; the CCA project file runs from 2009 to 2014, with photographs from August 2012 to August 2014 and an exhibition in Montreal from November 2014 to April 2015 — Sources give different completion years for Copper House II; the timeline shows which source says what. Diagram: MOA

Reception

Publication: ArchDaily (April 2012), Yellowtrace (2015) and The Modern House (2017).
Award: Studio Mumbai won the third Swiss Architectural Award (2011 to 2012). Copper House II, dated 2011, is one of the projects presented for the award, alongside Palmyra House and Leti 360 Resort. The jury's decision was unanimous.
Archive and exhibition: the CCA acquired the Copper House II file as part of the Bijoy Jain fonds, a gift of Bijoy Jain, and showed it in Rooms You May Have Missed: Bijoy Jain, Umberto Riva in Montreal, from 4 November 2014 to 19 April 2015.
Later recognition: reporting the 2020 Alvar Aalto Medal to Bijoy Jain, Archinfo Finland names Copper House II among the studio's main works. The jury, chaired by Jan Utzon, praised "a successful programmatic collaboration between architect and craftsmen".

Problems: we found no published account of leaks, maintenance trouble, alterations or a post-occupancy study. That is not evidence that there were none; the owners have not, as far as we found, spoken publicly about the house.

Copper House II vs Copper House 2: two different houses

Searches for "copper house 2" mix up two buildings. Arquitectura Viva lists a Copper House 2 (Casa de Cobre 2) by the Chilean architect Smiljan Radić in Talca, Chile, dated 2005, named for the copper sheet on its roof and walls. It is unrelated to Studio Mumbai's house in Chondi. We also found no published "Copper House I" by Studio Mumbai in the sources we read, so we cannot say what the "II" refers to.

What designers in India can take from it

This section is our reading of the published material, not the architects' own words.

Set the plinth from evidence, not habit. The floor level here comes from a recorded flood mark plus a margin. Near a stream, nala or low ground, ask neighbours and look for water marks on old walls before fixing the plinth.
Balance cut and fill on site. The well that supplies water also supplied the raised ground. Where a project digs a sump, pond or well, the spoil can become the plinth instead of a truck load out and another in.
Let paving do the drainage. Open-jointed stone in the court and paving shaped to lead water to an exit point handle a monsoon without a visible network of gutters. The detail to get right is where that water goes next.
Draw with the people who build. The carpenters' notebooks and study models in the CCA file show design decisions being worked out with the makers. Even on a conventional contract, a full-size mock-up of a window or screen settles questions drawings leave open.

Students documenting this house, or any other, can use our checklist on how to do an architecture case study to organise the material.

Visiting Copper House II

Copper House II is a private home and is not open to visitors.

The way to study it is through the archive. The CCA holds the Copper House II file (reference AP182.S1.2009.D1): 233 drawings, 12 photographs, 4 models and 2 videos, with 44 items digitised. The CCA says its digital material can be viewed only on site, by appointment. ArchDaily's gallery shows photographs supplied by Studio Mumbai.

Our Palmyra House case study covers another Studio Mumbai house in Maharashtra, at Nandgaon.

FAQ

Who designed Copper House II?

Studio Mumbai, the practice led by Bijoy Jain, designed and built it with the studio's own craftsmen. The sources we read do not name a project architect or an engineer.

Where is Copper House II?

In Chondi, Maharashtra, in a clearing in a mango grove near a brook that floods during the monsoon. It is a private home and not open to visitors.

When was Copper House II built?

Sources differ. Archilovers and Architectuul give 2010, while the Swiss Architectural Award project list and Archinfo give 2011. The carpenters' notebooks run from November 2009 to April 2011, and the CCA dates the project file 2009 to 2014.

What is the Copper House II floor plan like?

Two blocks of slightly different width sit either side of an open court paved in black basalt. Living spaces are on the ground floor and two copper-clad private rooms are above, with roofs that read as one copper plane. The original drawings are in the CCA archive in Montreal.

Is Copper House II the same as Smiljan Radić's Copper House 2?

No. Radić's Copper House 2 is in Talca, Chile, dated 2005. Studio Mumbai's Copper House II is in Chondi, Maharashtra.

Looking for an architect who designs for the monsoon? Find an architect on MOA.

Sources

Canadian Centre for Architecture: Copper House II, Bijoy Jain fonds (archive page) (accessed 4 Nov 2026)
Canadian Centre for Architecture: Copper House II, collection record AP182.S1.2009.D1 (accessed 4 Nov 2026)
Canadian Centre for Architecture: Bijoy Jain fonds (accessed 4 Nov 2026)
Canadian Centre for Architecture: Rooms You May Have Missed (accessed 4 Nov 2026)
Swiss Architectural Award: Winner 2012, Studio Mumbai (accessed 4 Nov 2026)
Yellowtrace: Copper House II by Studio Mumbai, 11 September 2015 (accessed 4 Nov 2026)
Archilovers: Copper House II, Studio Mumbai (accessed 4 Nov 2026)
Architectuul: Copper House II (accessed 4 Nov 2026)
ArchDaily: Copper House II / Studio Mumbai, 16 April 2012 (accessed 4 Nov 2026)
The Modern House: House of the Day: Copper House II by Studio Mumbai, 21 February 2017 (accessed 4 Nov 2026)
Archinfo Finland: Alvar Aalto Medal 2020 awarded to Bijoy Jain of Studio Mumbai (accessed 4 Nov 2026)
Arquitectura Viva: Copper House 2, Talca (Smiljan Radić) (accessed 4 Nov 2026)