Home About Contact

Vaishnavi Nayel Talawadekar is an internationally published architecture, design and art journalist.

Learn More

Portfolio

Architecture & Interior Tours

Guides

Design Stories

Art Stories

Architect & Designer Profiles

Architecture, Design & Art Insights

Vaishnavi works out of a sunny studio called Mangomonk where she writes for publications big and small.

Work With Vaishnavi

Publications

Click to view

Latest Articles

The Local Project •

Garden House by Openspace Architecture

Garden House may be physically situated on the sylvan shores of Saanich Inlet, just north of Victoria on Vancouver Island, but the waterfront residence exists metaphysically somewhere between the West Coast of America and the refined minimalism of Japan.
Conceived and constructed over a period of seven years, Garden House is as much a part of the landscape as the forest that surrounds it. The property comprises three buildings – a single-storey main house of 929 square metres, a guesthouse and a...
Architectural Digest •

This home in Kerala’s Kolanchery is a tranquil landing pad for its Kuwait-based owners

For the longest time, Kuwait-based Twiggy and Deepa Abraham’s trips home to Kolanchery, Kerala, a small town just 20 kilometres east of Kochi, meant being hosted by a revolving door of cheerful relatives. But somewhere along the way—2024, to be precise—they found themselves longing for a different kind of door: one that opened and shut on their terms, one they could truly call their own. “We’d been living abroad for a while and had always dreamed of having a holiday home in India that felt like...
The Local Project •

Greg and Lesa Faulkner At Home

A few times a year, Greg and Lesa Faulkner leave their residence in San Francisco and disappear into the wilds of Martis Valley, a forested Californian vale on the outskirts of Truckee, near Lake Tahoe, the United States’ largest alpine lake. Their retreats are far from casual escapes; they’re purposeful returns. Years ago, the couple – Greg, the founder and principal of California-based Faulkner Architects, and Lesa, who oversees interior design at the firm – acquired a 10,000-squaremetre parcel in the highland, with a promise to honour the land in their effort to make it home. Set at 2,100 metres above sea level and cloaked in towering Jeffrey and Ponderosa pines, tangled manzanita and the crisp perfume of wild sage, the site doesn’t just invite attention but reverence.
Vogue India •

Inside songstress Rhea Raj's Los Angeles studio

Much like its owner, the floor lamp in Rhea Raj’s studio has many moods. On days when she feels exuberant, it glows green; when she’s calm, it softens to yellow. But more often than not, it burns in fiery pinks and purples—“because it’s the energy I need when composing something sensual or feminine,” says the singer-songwriter, who was born in Connecticut to Indian parents. That same kaleidoscopic spirit coloured her debut at Lollapalooza Chicago in August this year, where she surprised fans with a performance of her song ‘Haute Couture’ alongside Aliyah’s Interlude, wearing a bejewelled butterfly-shaped corset and a molten ellipsis bindi that caught the spotlight with every move.
The Local Project •

Sliding Door Hardware by Halliday + Baillie - The Local Project

Halliday + Baillie’s sliding door hardware is crafted for projects where every element must align at the highest level. Whether in a minimalist apartment or heritage transformation, the hardware seamlessly integrates into a range of design contexts without compromising performance. A prime example is the HB690 privacy set, chosen for the restoration of the iconic Raffles Hotel in Singapore – proof that when it comes to combining design integrity with mechanical precision, few can rival Halliday...
Architectural Digest •

In Bengaluru, Hundredhands transformed a 150-year-old school into a cultural centre

Buildings that have reverberated with the voices of multiple generations carry a quiet magic—a magic that lingers long after those voices have faded. Architect Bijoy Ramachandran, of multidisciplinary design practice Hundredhands, knows this to be true, as he also knows that it can take time to uncover this magic. “We had to look deep,” he says of Sabha, the studio’s maiden conservation and adaptive reuse project. The initiative was helmed by civic evangelist and former honorary director of the Bangalore International Centre, V Ravichandar. “He and his wife, Hema, had started a family trust, and were interested in restoring a colonial-era school in Bengaluru’s Cantonment [area] and reimagining it as a hub for artistic expression,” explains Ramachandran, who worked closely with cultural strategist Raghu Tenkayala. “He [Tenkayala] played an instrumental role in bringing together the RBANM’s Educational Charities—to which the school once belonged—and Ravi’s [Ravichandar’s] family trust.”
Architectural Digest •

From erstwhile school to a haven for artistic endeavours, a 150-year-old Bengaluru landmark gets a second life

Buildings that have reverberated with the voices of multiple generations carry a quiet magic—a magic that lingers long after those voices have faded. Architect Bijoy Ramachandran of the multidisciplinary design practice Hundredhands knows this to be true, as he also knows that sometimes, that magic can take time to uncover. “We had to look deep,” he says of Sabha, the studio’s maiden conservation and adaptive reuse project. The initiative was helmed by civic evangelist and former honorary director of the Bangalore International Centre, V. Ravichandar, with whom Ramachandran had previously collaborated. “He and his wife, Hema, had started a family trust and were interested in restoring a Colonial-era school in Bengaluru’s Cantonment and reimagining it as a hub for artistic expression,” explains Ramachandran, who worked closely with cultural strategist Raghu Tenkayala on the project. “He played an instrumental role in bringing together the RBANM Educational Charities, to which the school once belonged, and Ravi’s family trust.”
Livingetc •

[Print] Jaipur: Memories in Mallorca

On a trip to Mallorca many moons ago, entrepreneur Puneet Sanghi stumbled upon a charming hotel. One half was a heritage fort, the other a contemporary addition – a postcard from the past, perfectly stamped into the present. “That really sparked the concept,” says Puneet of his family home in Jaipur, which he shares with his brother, Ambrish, their respective wives, Shweta and Devyani, and their children. As fourth-generation automobile entrepreneurs, the brothers’ careers had taken them across the world, shaping not only their outlook but, over the years, their home as well.
Livingetc •

[Print] Trichy: Dream Come True

Most nights, architect Gayatri Gunjal drifts into a recurring dream, floating high amidst the clouds. In that quiet, suspended world, the edges of reality blur: city streets shrink below her, buildings dissolve into mist, and all that remains is light, air and an unshakable sense of freedom. It is a space where ideas take shape before they exist on paper, where structures breathe and move, and where the founder and principal of Chennai-based Yellowsub Studio feels both weightless and grounded, as if the sky itself is guiding her hand.
A few years ago, that dream edged its way into Serora, a private residence in Trichy that Gayatri unwittingly conjured from her imagination and brought to life, softening gravity with double-height volumes, creating airy voids that spill sunlight through every level, and translucent screens that filter the sun like drifting clouds. As she puts it, the project was “me getting outside my own head.” Fortuitously, the owners’ vision was scarcely different from her own: they sought a home that felt expansive yet intimate, light yet grounded, a space that enlivened her dreams—and more importantly their own.
Architectural Digest •

In This Bay Area Midcentury Home, a Wall-to-Wall Headboard Connects Two Queen Beds

Once the walls were swapped for windows, arranging the furniture became a challenge. “We spent ages fine-tuning the furniture plan,” says Cheung, who experimented with multiple layouts and lighting schemes in collaboration with Tucci Lighting. The team finally landed on a sculptural curved sofa paired with flexible seating that can easily pivot—perfect for taking in the garden one moment and the TV the next. “The layout moves with the seasons,” she adds. “In December, for example, the furniture...
Architectural Digest •

Open Shelving Divides This Interior Stylist’s Brooklyn Apartment Into Subtle Zones—and Shows Off Her Travels

If there’s one thing Brittany Albert believes to be true, it’s the quiet power of manifestation. After all, there’s nothing else that could explain how her Brooklyn apartment—the parlor floor of a brownstone—came to be, and how the stars aligned, if only momentarily, when the previous tenants moved out. “We were renting an apartment a few floors above in the same building, and had seen this unit with its outdoor space and beautiful bay windows. When it became available, we jumped at the chance,”...
Architectural Digest •

This Halloween, 8 interior designers share their scariest interior design fails

For most interior designers, Halloween doesn’t roll around once a year—it’s an ongoing state of being. Ghosts and ghouls have nothing on vanishing contractors, interior design fails, fabric mishaps, or the occasional client meltdown. Miscommunications form the cobwebs, budget revisions deliver the jump scares, and the real haunted houses are the ones they’re scrambling to finish. Between paint colours that shift overnight and deliveries that never arrive, the design world is rife with horror. Ei...
The Local Project •

Pointe Living by Luigi Rosselli Architects and Atelier Alwill

If there’s one thing Luigi Rosselli Architects and Atelier Alwill can do – and do well – it’s to create 10 homes where there once stood only one. Pointe Living, a nine-storey apartment development in Sydney’s bustling Edgecliff neighbourhood, is a testament to this ambition, transforming a modest footprint into a cohesive ensemble of contemporary residences without sacrificing light, space or a sense of community.
The stack of 10 standalone residences – articulated to suit its narrow site – repr...
Architectural Digest •

A designer transformed this 60-year-old office into a serene Chennai home

Interior designer Sunita Yogesh has had so many brushes with fate that she is convinced she was a cat in a past life—“or still is,” quips the interior designer and founder of her namesake Chennai-based studio. No stranger to close calls, she faced her fair share of frightful moments on her latest project, an office converted into a home.At one point, the 1960s roof unexpectedly collapsed over the dining area before work had even begun, and later, removing the false ceiling revealed a sloped, rat...
Architectural Digest •

AD Small Spaces: This 650-square-foot Mulund home has one rule: no straight lines

The owners, Jyoti and Punit Malde, had a longer list of things they didn’t want than things they did. To wit: nothing flashy, nothing too colourful, and certainly nothing fussy or forced. “We wanted it to feel calm, warm, and soulful—a space that instantly makes us feel at ease,” says Jyoti. Their style leaned Japandi, with a love for natural textures, muted tones, warm materials, and those little details that make a space feel lived-in. And the home reflects it beautifully. Softly textured beig...
Architectural Digest •

Inside a Bengaluru home that bridges the gap between both ends of the country

What do you get when a boy from Delhi and a girl from Andhra Pradesh buy a house together? “Total chaos,” grins Chandana Vakulabharanam, the girl in question—evidently not without reason. When the strategy consultant and her Delhi-born husband, entrepreneur Lalith Gudipati, bought A Bengaluru home not too long ago, they knew in their bones that they'd made the right choice.“The way the sunlight streamed in made the entire place feel vibrant and full of energy, and we instantly knew it was meant...
Livingetc •

[Print] Kolkata: Out of this World

The thing about interior design, for better or worse, is that it rarely treads the middle ground – clients either love it or loathe it. When interior designer Ajay Arya, founder and principal of Kolkata-based A Square Designs, was tasked with transforming a 7,000 sq ft bare-shell duplex on the city’s coveted Loudon Street for Rashmi and Vishal Saraogi, a couple in their forties, he had little inkling of just how swiftly the verdict – or verdicts – would swing in his favour. “Their daughter developed a keen interest in interior design,” says the aesthete – so keen, in fact, that she chose it as her field of study, even going on to intern with Ajay’s firm.
Architectural Digest •

This Bengaluru apartment is a grandmother's gracious gift to a newlywed couple

First homes are always special, but even more so when they come as a wedding gift from your grandmother. “We’d always dreamed of creating a nest of our own, and this home made that possible,” says UI/UX designer Gayathri Nair, speaking of the gift from her grandmother-in-law. Perched on the 14th floor and surrounded by lush greenery, this Bengaluru apartment offered a serene, secluded escape—but as Nair explains, it still needed a touch of personality to truly feel like home.
The Local Project •

Timber & Tones House by Studio Soleil and Bullivant Architecture

A melting pot of Italian restaurants, eclectic cafés, verdant parks and heritage homes, Sydney’s Leichhardt layers Mediterranean charm with cultural histories and modern conveniences. Timber & Tones House by Studio Soleil reflects these surroundings, balancing old-world character with contemporary sensibilities.
For Studio Soleil, the priority was preserving the interbellum bungalow’s historic identity while embracing a bold, modern extension. “The challenge lay in marrying the two – ensuring ea...
Architectural Digest •

For its owners, this bougainvillea-draped Bengaluru villa is a long-held dream come true

For most, destiny is written in the stars, but in Mitali Sodhi and Vishwastam Shukla’s case, it bloomed in the bougainvillea. “We knew right away,” says Sodhi of their east Bengaluru villa—situated inside a 15-year-old enclave—whose bougainvillea-draped garden, serendipitously, was a manifestation many years in the making. “I had dreamed about a garden like this for years,” she continues. “So it was almost as if the garden had been waiting for me all along.” For the couple, the decision began and ended there: this was their home—the one where bougainvillea had spilled out of their dreams and taken root in reality.
Load More

In Print

Click to read

AD Visits

Architectural Digest •

Inside a coastal Karnataka bungalow inspired by childhood memory

As sometimes happens when inspiration strikes, Salian found himself guided by flashes of memory, or as he puts it, “a faint, sensorial fragment from childhood. I remember stepping into a Mangalore tile factory, now long vanished, and being enveloped by its vastness. A double-height roof stretched overhead, its terracotta tiles resting on an exposed lattice of wooden trusses. The air was thick with the scent of sun-baked clay and ash. Light filtered in from high openings, casting long shadows acr...
Architectural Digest •

AD Visits: Diipa Büller-Khosla's canal house in Amsterdam is a postcard from 1614

Even from 6,000 kilometres away, Diipa Büller-Khosla’s energy is palpable through the screen. It’s morning where she is, and she and her husband and business partner, Dutch former diplomat, Oleg Büller-Khosla (the couple legally adopted each other's last names when they married in 2018) are perched in the kitchen of their Amsterdam home, in the company of their pet pooches, Kubii and Bimbo.

By their own admission, it’s a scene that just a few years ago, was a figment of their imagination. “We'd
Architectural Digest •

AD Visits: Ishaan Khatter’s Mumbai apartment is a sunset sanctuary

When he isn't busy filming or promoting or air-dashing off to exotic locales, Ishaan Khatter likes to appreciate the little things in life. “On Sunday mornings, when time permits, I slip off for a bike ride. In the evenings, I like to watch the sunset with some music and coffee,” says the actor, who was last seen in supernatural comedy Phone Bhoot, alongside Katrina Kaif and Siddhant Chaturvedi. So when he moved in a three-bedroom apartment along the Bandra sea face, naturally, his first priorit
Architectural Digest •

AD Visits: Actor Aahana Kumra’s Mumbai apartment is a pretty-in-pink princess pad

In a building full of identical brown doors, Aahana Kumra's entrance is the only non-brown curiosity. "I absolutely love pink. It's my all-time favourite colour—that's why it's right at the front," she laughs, holding open the candyfloss-coloured opuscule as she ushers me inside. For Kumra, the home is a manifestation twenty years in the making, and one that nods equally to her Lucknowi roots and her life in Mumbai. "There are whiffs of Kashmir, London and Delhi too. It's a collection of all my
Architectural Digest •

AD Visits: Actor Aparshakti Khurana’s Mumbai home displays drama in the details

Even before they had finalised their house, or decided who would design it, actor Aparshakti Khurana and his wife, events entrepreneur Aakriti Ahuja, had a chandelier picked out and stowed away in storage. "I had spotted it some years ago in Delhi and just knew I had to buy it," laughs Aakriti, and Aparshakti chimes in, "We had no idea what our future house would look like. Nothing was set in stone, except this big, blue bhaisahab." The bhaisahab in question now occupies a corner of their living
Architectural Digest •

AD Visits: Singer Armaan Malik’s Mumbai home is halfway between London and Los Angeles

At 10 AM on a Sunday, the last thing you'd expect is for Armaan Malik to be crisping the edges of a frittata. And yet, that's exactly the sight that greets me as I step into his kitchen, a California-cool bolthole with a London-esque edge. "I love making breakfast and treating myself to a good spread," he says, drizzling butter on bruschettas. Dressed in a casual button-up and chinos, he looks like a laid-back version of his on-screen alter ego, who, as fans of The Voice (on which Armaan appears
Architectural Digest •

AD Visits: Actors Aditya Seal and Anushka Ranjan’s newlywed nest is a storybook come to life

At the door of actors (and newlyweds) Aditya Seal and Anushka Ranjan Seal's new Mumbai duplex, the nameplate is conspicuous by its absence. What is not is the cheery (LED) baby seal that takes its place, animating the wall and nodding to its namesake owners. “It's fun to watch people guess," says Anushka. "Those who get it, get it. And it makes for a great conversation-starter." But the unlikely sea creature isn’t the only thing setting the entryway apart—because if the peach-toned front door (a