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In some, the house is set inside, located a good distance away from the entrance gate; the driveway is lined with trees and even lamps on either side. In the current race for space, however, these sound more as fairytale settings.

Rajeev, an architect practising in New Zealand, says “one thing that can be said with certainty about driveway design trends is, the shorter it is the better unless one is doing something iconic or landmark type.” According to him, these are days of apartments where money is saved for plush interiors. So, driveways are done in such a way that they provide a workable solution for vehicular access.

Preeti Rana, another architect, explains that space and security reasons force residents in individual houses to go in for shorter driveways. It is easier to man one access to a house than two. However, driveways are a necessity since they provide the sense of entry to a house.

Shrinath Tandur, a Bangalore-based architect, explains that most individual houses on smaller plots tend to integrate the car park facilities into the house design. Those who have the luxury of larger area have the garage grouped with other facilities such as gardening cabin and maids’ rooms. The driveway design then depends on the slope in the site, existing vegetation, terrain and if need be the vaastu principles also. On smaller plots, the outline of the house will be the result of the setbacks to be left as per the local planning rules. In high rise buildings, such as apartments, the fire code is an important consideration. He says the fire code is part of the National Building Code. The taller the building the greater the setback space. This setback becomes the driveway and it has to be designed for easy movement of a fire truck.

The older version of long driveways has not gone out of trend completely, he points out. Mr. Tandur says the traditional paving materials are brick and cobblestone. Other options include coloured concrete blocks, stone slabs and plain cement surface.

He suggests that driveways should be planned in such a manner that rainwater seeps into the ground and there is enough space for some greenery, without affecting the surface and space for vehicular movement. M. Soundariya Preetha

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