Architecture & Interior Tours

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...

[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.

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.

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.

This holiday home in Kochi is a sunlit ode to Kerala's vernacular

The thing about worshipping the sun, if you're not careful, is that it might reciprocate a tad too emphatically—so emphatically, in fact, that architect Reshma Geordy of Thiruvananthapuram-based The Design Verses, a sun worshipper herself, found herself in something of a predicament not too terribly long ago. “It was a tricky thing,” says Geordy, whose thing in question was creating a tropical sunhouse of sorts, in a land as hot as Kochi. “The question was—how do we create a sun-drenched home without the heat that comes with it?” adds the architect, whose client, Basil Thomas—a Kerala-born, Canada-based engineer who had admittedly resigned himself to a life of icy chill halfway across the world—envisaged a holiday home in Kochi with warm and sunny spaces.

Void House by Light and Air

A typical New York City brownstone is characterised by its iconic stoop, narrow facade and warm-hued sandstone exterior, often punctuated by tall windows and classic 19th-century details. Many also feature a narrow period staircase perpendicular to the length of the building – a feature that New York City–based studio Light and Air considered more limiting than liberating, restricting how the space could be used. In designing Void House, a 300-square-metre brownstone in Manhattan’s Carnegie Hill neighbourhood, the practice rotated the rowhouse staircase ninety degrees, transforming it from a mere functional thoroughfare into the home’s pièce de résistance.

These Ahmedabad-based architects built a house with “the most beautiful entrance foyer”

Also read: 4 weekend homes in Ahmedabad that are sanctuaries away from the cityThe builder gave carte blanche to the pair, with just one cheeky caveat: “create the most beautiful foyer you’ve ever seen”—and maybe sprinkle in a little history while at it. “We wanted something that spoke the city’s language—not the polished brochure version, but the one tucked away in old pols, behind carved wooden doors and inside quiet inner chowks,” says Jariwala. For her and Kaswala, the foyer wasn’t just an e...

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...

The Designers Behind This Former Georgia O’Keeffe Hangout Only Added Details That Felt Original

All products featured on Architectural Digest are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.As the AD PRO Directory designers quickly realized, the real challenge was exercising tactful restraint. “We’re usually brought in to add architectural details that make a house feel special. This time, the house was the special part. It was more about holding back so the architecture could shine,” notes...

[Print] Anchored by Air: Goa Bungalow by We Design Studio

Two years ago, architects Saahil Parikh and Nupur Shah set foot on a plot of land in the Goan village of Agarvado — and were instantly captivated. “The land was completely untouched,” recalls Saahil. But it was equally wild. “Our first site visit took place during the monsoon, and the terrain was remarkably marshy. I remember struggling to walk across it. By the time we were done, our feet and shoes were caked in thick mud right up to our ankles. Cleaning up took some effort,” adds the co-founder of the Mumbai-based We Design Studio, who went on to clear not just his footwear, but, in time, the spectacular surrounding quagmire as well. Tucked away on a storybook estate spanning ten acres, the site lay cradled between the Chapora River and an expanse of mangroves, its surface dotted with three man-made salt pans. Completing the setting with a villa just as idyllic, then, was a challenge that called for sensitivity over spectacle.

This Coonoor bungalow, aged 80 years, is a colonial revival in the Nilgiris

Maintaining a historic home, like this Coonoor bungalow, is a privilege few receive, but reviving one from the ashes of its past is a privilege even fewer desire. Ajith and Shashi Jhabakh, however, were undeterred. When the Coimbatore-based couple approached architect Sowmya Kumar of OWM Architecture, they weren’t seeking an easy restoration—they wanted to breathe new life into a house that had weathered time, loss, and neglect.Built in the 1940s during the British Raj and passed down through ge...

A California Home Rediscovers its French Contemporary Roots With Cloudlike Details

There was something special about the home’s French Contemporary bones—but there was also something missing. “While Gina and Dan loved the French influences, they really wanted us to emphasize the contemporary aspect—to truly bring the home into the present,” says Sulaiman, who set about creating a warm and inviting oasis—somewhere the family could huddle, kick off their boots, and disappear for a while. And then, just as easily, reemerge and entertain when the mood struck. She didn’t design the...

This 3,500-square-foot coastal villa in Chennai channels Mediterranean magic

The thing that people often forget about architects is their ability to roll with the punches—to expand a room by a few square metres, move a window an inch or two to the left, flip the living room to frame a better view. Or, as in the case of Raghuveer Ramesh and Sharanya Srinivasan, the duo behind Chennai-based Studio Context, do all that—and then decide to promptly not. “We kept doubling every room with each design round. At one point, Sharanya insisted that she’d have to start cutting down t...

Larkspur by BOSS Architecture

Larkspur, a midcentury-inspired dwelling designed by Denver-based BOSS Architecture, harmonises with the surrounding 1960s residences yet conceals a secret imperceptible from the street: a storybook backyard that turns with the seasons.
For the architects, the ambition to create a garden that matched or even surpassed the home itself inspired the idea of an L-shaped plan that would shelter the backyard from two perpendicular street frontages. While one wing was designed to accommodate a garage,...

Inside BILT Rewards founder Ankur Jain and former WWE wrestler Erika Hammond's home in NYC

Also read: A retired couple’s home in Bengaluru becomes a quiet ode to neoclassicism and memoryThe thing about designing a home for a couple, especially one as creatively distinct as Jain and Hammond—he breathes technology, she’s a former beauty queen and the founder of STRONG by Erika, a boxing-inspired fitness app—is finding a way to hold a mirror to who they are individually, and who they are together. As Mehlre explains, “Ankur and Erika represent the perfect fusion of intellectual sophistic...

Articolo Studios’ New Melbourne Flagship Showroom by Studio Goss

Though defined by angular volumes, the showroom possesses an earthy quality, an approach that reflects the nature of the objects it houses: all of Articolo Studio’s lighting features brass as a base metal, with some pieces finished in bronze. The space reflects the studio’s focus on the inherent beauty of the materials featured in its ranges. “We create lighting and a complement of sculptural furn...

[Print] Objects of Obsession: Chennai Apartment by Samir Wadekar

When he isn’t busy styling or decorating spaces, Samir Wadekar likes to disappear into antiques stores — on the lookout for curious objects, not conversation. “I go for the things, not the people,” he jokes. But once every six years, fate throws in a bonus. “We first met by chance at an antiques store in Mumbai nearly six years ago, and instantly bonded over our mutual love for the past,” says Samir of his encounter with the Chennai-based entrepreneur and art collector Jaiveer Johal. As it turned out, the pair had a lot in common, sharing a penchant for vintage, Wedgwood, Indian art, and the 1979 British series Antiques Roadshow, preferably on repeat.

[Print] Volume, Light & Quiet: A Home in Hyderabad by NA Architects

Anyone who knows Niroop Reddy, or has, at the very least, experienced one of his ambitious designs, knows that the Hyderabad-based architect, for better or for worse, has a penchant for packing double the punch. “It’s always for the better,” smiles the founder and principal architect of NA Architects, who remains faithful to a more-is-more approach. Although, if his latest Hyderabad project—a 9,600-square-foot show villa—is anything to go by, more, at least in terms of volume, can sometimes equal less. His restraint from excess, on this occasion, is characterised by the double-height void that punctuates the central living area: a hallmark that has come to define his studio over the past decade, and one that proved particularly fortuitous for this project, which he undertook alongside principal interior designer Rupana Reddy.

Gantri’s Consciously Crafted Lighting

From nebulous table lamps to traffic-signal-inspired floor lights, each Gantri piece is a sculptural statement that empowers self-expression and channels an unexpected whimsy that feels both contemporary and timeless. Its design language, paired with its eco-conscious ethos – each light is crafted from a biodegradable, plant-based polymer derived from sustainably grown, non-GMO sugarcane – has made it a firm favourite in the A&D world. Gantri lighting has featured in Time, Dezeen and Architectur...

This Scuba-Loving Couple’s Florida Home Makes a Case for Kelp Green

For one scuba-loving couple, trading city life in Washington, D.C., for the laid-back rhythm of High Springs, Florida—a town famed for its turquoise springs and storybook charm—was a chance to keep the water close, and its magic even closer. To them, a home inspired by those crystal pools felt like the perfect place to begin. The only snag? They had no idea how to bring it to life. What they did have, though, was the perfect blank slate: a forgotten workshop separated from the main house by a ha...

This store in Hyderabad is inspired by Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Padmaavat

If this store in Hyderabad were a movie set, the customers would naturally be the protagonist. “Which is why it had to inspire an atmosphere that makes people feel great about what they are buying,” says Dev. For him, that looked like jharokha-inspired backdrops and dazzling open displays, arranged so as to blur the distinction between merchandise and mise-en-scène—where every sari feels like part of the narrative, not just a product on a rail. Dev puts a finer point on the subject. “Every conve...

In this Chennai home, hotel-like luxury meets heartfelt design

James Stephen, Managing Director of the Clinton Group of Hotels, is no stranger to the art of fine living. But, as he realised early last year, delighting others is far easier a feat than delighting himself. “Every time I received a quote, I’d have to take a glass of water to calm myself down,” says the Chennai-based entrepreneur. “Then I’d call Varsha to discuss it…only to be told to take another glass because this was just fifty per cent of the quote.” The Varsha in question was Varsha Menon,...
Load More