Architecture & Interior Tours

Treetop by Studio Kennon

This relationship to the site is expressed through two distinct architectural identities. From the street, the house appears restrained and protective, with a largely solid concrete facade that prioritises privacy. In contrast, the park-facing elevation opens dramatically towards the canopy. A sweeping curved wall of glazing captures views through the trees, while vertical timber louvres filter light and visually echo the surrounding trunks. Large sliding panels disappear entirely into concealed...

This Mumbai production studio is designed like a film that slowly reveals itself

More often than not, when it comes to creating a space, architects Aashna Shah and Ruchir Jain of Mumbai-based RAD co + lab like to resort to a bit of make-believe. “We like to imagine first and design second,” says Shah. For one home, that story might unfold in a sun-dappled English garden. For another, it could begin with a postcard from Japan and end somewhere delightfully wabi-sabi. So when the duo were commissioned to design the office of a leading Mumbai production house in the suburb of S...

Housed in a 70-year-old building, this Puducherry boutique feels almost monastic

Task architect Deepak Jawahar and designer Justine De Penning of Chennai-based The Architecture Story to conjure a space, and chances are, they’ll begin, crucially, by taking things away. Not stripping it bare necessarily, but editing—gently, patiently—until what remains feels almost inevitable. That approach finds its perfect counterpart in fashion designer Naushad Ali’s new boutique in Puducherry, housed within a 70-year-old building in White Town, where, as De Penning explains, the intention...

Nacho Polo and Robert Onuska’s Tribeca Residence by Herzog & de Meuron and StudioTwentySeven

Designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron as a “villa in the sky”, the architecture provided a rigorous framework. Instead of disrupting it, Polo and Onuska leaned into its clarity. “We chose to work in dialogue with it, creating a living composition where architecture, collectible design and contemporary art continuously interact,” Onuska says. This sensibility is immediately evident upon entry, where the foyer establishes a gallery-like tone: measured, deliberate and immersive.
Light pla...

This 17th-floor Chennai apartment measures space in everyday moments

High above Chennai, on the 17th floor of a tower that gathers both heat and horizon into its embrace, a Sunita Yogesh Studio apartment looks out over a city that never quite settles and, beyond it, a strip of sea that appears and disappears with the light. Inside, however, there is none of that restlessness. The mood is composed, considered, hushed—less about effect than about the art of living well. The home, in a way, mirrors its owners: a couple in their thirties, both in demanding IT careers...

This architect’s Chennai studio is a home disguised as an office

Set on a bustling street in Chennai, the studio occupies a 1980s building that once functioned as a family home. The owners still live upstairs; life continues above in its original domestic register, while the ground floor has passed through years of commercial tenants, each leaving behind their own alterations. Yet beneath those layers, Menon found something intact—a quiet, unshowy integrity. The mosaic floors were what first caught her. Different in every room, slightly irregular, distinctly...

This architect couple gave their parents' 40-year-old Chennai home a delightful upgrade

Pablo Picasso once said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." Husband-and-wife architect duo Kavin Sundar and Preethi Baskaran of Chennai studio Two Straight Lines never had that problem, because to Kavin’s parents, Sundar and Raji, their son and daughter-in-law have always been creative first and grown-ups second. So when the couple proposed transforming the underused terrace of the family’s 40-year-old Chennai home into a light-filled extension fo...

This Rajkot cafe is built around traditional courtyards and teracotta

The idea of stepping out rarely comes with the promise of slowing down—especially in bistros and brasseries, where even leisure tends to feel scheduled. You walk in, pick a table, scan the room like you’ve done this before, and instinctively edit yourself to match whatever version of you the space seems to prefer. But every so often, you stumble into a place that resolutely refuses the whole act. Exhibit A: Café Beats.A stacked terracotta matka partition marks the first pause inside Café Beats,...

This jewellery store in Tamil Nadu's Pollachi feels more like an heirloom than a showroom

Architect Sowmya Kumar likes to see the glass half full. The trouble is, when it comes to her work, the founder of Coimbatore-based OWM Architecture can never quite resist filling it right to the brim. She slipped into this habit, almost irreverently, while designing Tvishi, a jewellery store in Pollachi, Tamil Nadu, repeatedly revisiting a scheme her client had already enthusiastically green-lit and returning with iteration after iteration—each more dazzling than the last. "There came a point w...

Inside a multi-pavilion Surat home inspired by a grandson’s memory

Distil Surat designer Rahul Dholakia's memories of his grandmother down to their essence, and one scene remains: a mud chullah crackling in the courtyard of their ancestral home, bajra na rotla rising over the flame, and a young boy sitting close enough to carry the smell of smoke with him for years to come. The house itself wasn't remarkable. The memories it contained were. Dholakia grew up in a sprawling Gujarati family that now numbers more than 70 members. Business eventually took him around...

This house in Kerala’s Idukki hills practically disappears into the landscape

More often than not, before he begins designing spaces in real life, architect Prabhul Mathew of Kottayam-based Mindspark Architects likes to create them in his head. Sometimes, these structures are large. Other times, small. Some have gabled roofs. Some, flat ones. But almost all of them, in one way or another, begin on reassuringly flat terrain. For Mathew, however, architecture in real life rarely begins with a predetermined idea of form. Instead, the terrain, climate, vegetation, light, and wind gradually shape the building over time. “The site decides what it needs,” says the architect, who worked alongside team member Shahana Salahudeen.

The Homeowners' Favorite Room in This Napa House Is Actually Outside

For designer Rachel Vineberg Jones and her husband, Eric Jones, their latest chapter was one they hadn’t seen coming. It began with a prolonged hospital stay for their newborn son and continued with the purchase of a 3,000-square-foot home in Napa. “I remember looking around and saying to Eric, ‘There's something about this place—I think it's going to become important to us,’” says the founder of San Francisco–based design studio Vine Projects. At the time, the property offered more promise than...

Rockpool House by Architecture Saville Isaacs and Madeleine Wood

Located in one of Avoca Beach’s most coveted pockets, the six-bedroom dwelling responds directly to its setting between bushland and ocean. About 90 minutes north of Sydney, the Central Coast enclave is known for its laid-back atmosphere and strong sense of community – qualities that shaped the home’s tone as much as its architecture. The project also carries personal significance for the owners, whose longstanding connection to the area informed the brief and inspired the home’s name, a referen...

Angel Dream by Clint Nicholas Design

In Holmby Hills – one of Los Angeles’s most storied enclaves, tucked between Beverly Hills and Bel Air – the echoes of old Hollywood still linger. Known as part of the ‘Platinum Triangle’, the neighbourhood is defined by sweeping estates, tall hedges and quiet, tree-lined streets. It is the setting for a sprawling residence by Clint Nicholas Design, where a postcard-like European air meets contemporary family living. “It has this very established, romantic character,” says interior designer Clint Nicholas. “Holmby Park just nearby gives it this gentle connection to nature that really shaped how the clients wanted to live.”

Wybalena by Ziegler

Conceived as a legacy project, the four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom home was envisioned as a place of permanence – one that could evolve with its owner over time. “The intention was to create something enduring,” says Todd Miller of Ziegler. “A home that responds to both the landscape and the rhythms of family life.” Set on a two-hectare site just two kilometres from Byron Bay, the design captures the full sweep of its surroundings, framing sunrise and sunset as daily rituals embedded wit...

Built Around a Mango Tree, This Kerala Home Is a New Kind of Greenhouse

Architect Arjun Joshy, by his own admission, is a connoisseur of design and mangoes, in roughly equal measure. For this Kerala home in the Indian city of Thrissur, his first order of business was to save the mango tree at the center of the site.The homeowner, Sharan, is a software engineer who moved back to Kerala during the COVID-19 pandemic. The shift marked a quiet recalibration of pace and priorities. “My wife is a teacher, and we have two young boys. We are a family of six, living together...

Inside a Bandra apartment designed for someone yet to arrive

An interior remodel, as any sage designer will tell you, can go one of two ways—“off-script or very off-script,” laughs interior designer Tejal Mathur, founder and principal of her eponymous Mumbai studio. Her latest project, a 2,000-square-foot apartment in Bandra, belongs firmly to the latter category. “After the first cut of the plan, the owners came back to us with a little surprise,” she continues. “They needed a full-fledged nursery…because, well, she was pregnant.” For Mathur and her team—designers Meha Jadeja, Gayatri Shinde, and Rizzanne Idnani—it meant going back to the drawing board. This time, with a crib in mind.

In this multigenerational Mumbai home, everyday life finds its curve

Interior designer Dhvani Shah trusts her sixth sense—but over the years, she’s developed a seventh to ensure she always backs the sixth. “They called it the ‘sandwich strategy’,” laughs Shah, recalling her latest clients—a family of five, comprising a husband and wife, their five-year-old son, and the husband’s parents, who entrusted her with transforming their bare-shell, builder-grade apartment into a warm, multigenerational oasis.“Material selection was always a highlight because of Dhvani’s...

[Print] Chennai: Quietly Does It

bove the dining table in
a Poes Garden, Chennai
home, floats a sculptural
light that looks like it’s
drifted in from a fairy tale.
Part chimney, part cloud
– entirely unfazed by the attention. Getting
it up there, though, required every bit of it.
As Amrita Thomas of Chennai-based Alara
Studio puts it, the piece by Arjun Rathi
arrived in bits, like an oversized jigsaw,
and had to be assembled on site with a fair
amount of coaxing – and, one imagines, a
few deep breaths. “When it finally came
together, there was a collective sigh of relief
– and the distinct sense that the room had
been waiting for it all along,” she says of the
installation.

Maharam Showroom by Neil Logan

Historic buildings often carry a past that is as significant, if not more so, than their present. Maharam’s new Manhattan outpost at 257 Park Avenue South in Gramercy Park is a compelling example. The multi-brand showroom is a contemporary reimagining of the historic space by local architect Neil Logan, who is celebrated for his ability to revitalise buildings while preserving their defining character. True to Maharam’s signature approach, the aesthetic is immediately apparent: a soaring gallery offers a vantage point over a large library of textiles and leather, while warm, earthy display units in Douglas fir and marine plywood counterbalance the materials’ softness. One wall is transfor...

This 4,500-square-foot Chennai penthouse reads like a riverfront reverie

The dining area is where the home allows itself a small flourish. The vaulted ceiling arches overhead, turning what could have been just another table-and-chairs situation into something with a bit more presence. The bedrooms, on the other hand, dial things down. The master suite is spacious but refreshingly uninterested in showing off. It’s layered with soft materials, muted tones, and the kind of light that makes you linger a little longer. The vaulted ceiling makes a reappearance here too, be...
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