Dubai has no shortage of interiors that shout. What is harder to find is a room that is quiet, warm and genuinely made. Many homes here arrive as a finished shell — a tower apartment with a wall of glass and a developer kitchen, a penthouse sold on its view, a villa in a master-planned community built to a standard plan — and the market around them moves quickly. The work is to slow the room down without slowing the project.
NYKS is a studio in Jaipur, and we take on a Dubai project as a whole: we lead the design, commission the craft, run the programme and inspect what is built. The parts the emirate reserves for licensed firms — submitting drawings, holding permits, building — are carried out by the licensed Dubai consultant and fit-out contractor we bring onto the team with you. Our built work is in Jaipur and Udaipur. Principal Designer Nishtha Kandoi worked at Gensler and AS+GG in Chicago and KPF in New York, so the logic of a tower — its core, its risers, its curtain wall — is familiar ground.
AD Middle East featured Sum, Jaipur — a boutique hotel in a 100-year-old manor house. Architecture: Gagan Sharma · Interiors curated by NYKS. Read the feature. Sum shows how we treat a shell we did not build: keep what has character, place objects one at a time, add nothing for effect. A Dubai apartment needs the same discipline, and needs it more.
The studio keeps Jaipur hours, 10:00 to 20:00 IST, which is 08:30 to 18:30 in Dubai: your whole working day overlaps with ours. Nonstop flights from Jaipur take about three and a half hours. A project moves in six steps.
In India the studio builds what it draws; in Dubai it draws, commissions and inspects — more on how the studio works.
Dubai Law No. 7 of 2025, in force since 8 January 2026, regulates contracting across the emirate, free zones and DIFC included. Only contractors licensed and listed on the contractor register run by Dubai Municipality may carry out contracting work; subcontractors need approval too, and owners may not appoint anyone unregistered. So the construction sits with a registered contractor — one we tender to and then work alongside. NYKS leads the design, commissions the craft, coordinates the team and inspects what is built against the drawings; the contractor submits, permits and builds.
Loose furniture, art and soft furnishings rarely need a permit. Moving walls, services or wet areas does, so we decide early which changes are worth the approval. The route depends on who governs the plot:
July and August highs average around 43 °C. On the coast humidity can climb above 90 per cent, and the summer shamal lifts fine sand that finds every open joint. Indoors the air is chilled and dry. Materials fail in the gap between the two. In a tower, glare through floor-to-ceiling glass is the first comfort problem; the shell arrives hard and bright, and the work is softening it.
Craft makes a Dubai apartment specific rather than generic, provided it sits in restrained detailing and is never a theme. Araish, the polished lime plaster of Jaipur’s old houses, gives a tower’s flat walls depth without adding colour. A thikri mirror panel returns the city at night in fragments rather than as one hard reflection. Hand-forged brass — door pulls, light fittings, a stair rail — ages slowly and well in chilled, dry air.
Pieces are made in Jaipur while approvals run and go by rail to Mundra or Nhava Sheva; the sea leg to Jebel Ali is typically under a week, so the real lead time is the making, crating and paperwork. Standard UAE customs duty is 5 per cent of the CIF value, Indian-made furniture can qualify for preferential rates under the India–UAE CEPA, and import VAT is 5 per cent. All of it goes into the budget before anything is ordered.
A contractor licensed and listed on the emirate’s register: Dubai Law No. 7 of 2025 requires it, and owners may not appoint anyone else. That contractor is part of the team we put together with you — we tender the drawings, help you compare the bids, then coordinate and inspect while they build, permit and sign for the site. You have one studio accountable for the design and one licensed contractor accountable for the construction.
It depends on who governs the plot. Palm Jumeirah falls under Trakhees, the regulator for Nakheel areas; Dubai Marina falls under Dubai Municipality. Either way, building management or the master developer issues a no-objection first, the contractor then applies for the permit, and Dubai Civil Defence reviews anything that touches fire and life safety. We confirm the route at survey, before design is fixed.
The UAE’s standard customs duty is 5 per cent of the CIF value: cost, insurance and freight. Indian-made furniture can qualify for preferential rates under the India–UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, in force since May 2022, if it meets the rules of origin and ships with a certificate of origin. Import VAT at 5 per cent applies either way. We confirm the position with the freight forwarder and put it in the budget before ordering.
Usually less than people expect, and different things. Sound kitchens and bathrooms can often stay. What changes a room most is lighting, joinery, wall finishes, textiles and a few commissioned pieces, and some of that, such as loose furniture, rugs and art, needs no permit at all. Moving walls, services or wet areas needs a no-objection and a permit, adds time, and is worth it only where the plan genuinely does not work.
At the stages that decide the result: the survey, before walls and ceilings are closed, when joinery and craft are installed, and at snagging. Jaipur to Dubai is a nonstop flight of about three and a half hours, so an extra visit is easy to add when a decision needs someone in the room. Between visits we review the contractor’s progress photographs weekly and hold a video call in shared working hours.