This riverfront villa in Kerala is a tranquil sanctuary designed like an ancestral home with a nostalgic quality to it. The 6,000-square-feet villa is located on a large plot along the banks of a river. The client is a popular Malayalam movie director—a household name in Kerala. He and his family wished to live in a space that was cosy and familiar. All through the briefing, the one word that stood out and therefore defined the design style was ‘tharavad,’ which is a typical ancestral home of Kerala. The client’s family wanted to feel like they had moved into a ‘tharavad,’ characterised by an indoor courtyard and the heavy use of wood, terracotta, greenery and bricks. However, we consciously avoided overdoing the ethnic elements and interspersed the look with a few contemporary pieces to break the monotony.