Bengaluru has the kindest climate of any Indian metro, which lets a room be about how people live and work rather than about defending against the weather. Villas in Whitefield and on Sarjapur Road can open their living rooms to the garden; independent homes in Indiranagar and Koramangala can use every balcony; offices can put people near daylight and moving air. The constraints lie elsewhere: water that runs short in the dry months, rain that arrives hard in September and October, and association rules that govern what a villa or apartment may change.
We take projects in Bengaluru from our studio in Jaipur. The drawings, the craft and the purchasing come from there; the building is done by a Bengaluru contractor and trades assembled for that project, with our site lead present at the stages that decide it. Our finished projects so far are in Jaipur and Udaipur.
Among the work we have built, these are the most relevant to the city’s mix of workspaces, client-facing rooms and family homes.
Temperatures run from about 16°C on winter nights to 34°C in April, so generous openings, cross-ventilation and verandahs that are actually used are the right starting point. Rain is the variable. Roughly 985 mm falls in a year, mostly between June and October, with September and October the wettest months and, in some years, flooding. Thresholds, balcony falls and door sills are detailed for that, and timber at openings is lifted clear of wet floors and sealed at its end grain.
Water scarcity reaches the site too. In March 2024, and again in February 2025, the city’s water board banned the use of drinking water for construction, gardening and car washing, with fines starting at Rs 5,000. We plan wet trades for when treated water can be supplied, favour joinery and craft made off site in Jaipur over work that consumes water on site, and bring in a landscape designer to plant for Bengaluru’s dry months rather than for the opening photograph.
BBMP no longer exists. Since 1 September 2025 the city has been governed by the Greater Bengaluru Authority and five city corporations — North, South, Central, East and West — and building plan approvals run through the authority’s online system. Villa communities on the city’s edge may fall under a different planning authority, so we confirm which applies before drawing anything structural.
Most day-to-day rules come from associations. Karnataka’s apartment law forbids any owner from endangering the building’s soundness or safety or adding material structure without the unanimous consent of the other owners, and apartment and villa associations add rules of their own: approved drawings, deposits, working hours, lift bookings and, in many villa communities, controls on facades, extensions and boundary walls. The state’s apartment law is being revised, so we work from each association’s current manual rather than from assumptions.
Offices add the landlord’s fit-out rules: building management approval, fixed hours for noisy work, and services that must tie into the base building. MEP, acoustics and IT/AV are planned with specialists from the first layout, not after the ceiling is closed.
A tech office is a hard room to make calm: open floors, glass, hard ceilings and a hundred conversations. Craft helps in practical ways. Hand-applied lime plaster gives walls a matt, mineral surface that softens light; cane screens divide without closing; durries and block-printed upholstery add the softness that makes a room sound quieter. In meeting and client rooms, a carved stone jaali or a hand-forged brass light gives the space a sense of place a standard fit-out cannot.
In villas and independent homes the craft moves outdoors as much as in: jaali to shade a verandah, hand-painted cabinetry in the kitchen, cane in the furniture, araish on the walls of rooms that open to the garden.
The studio’s two founders divide the work between design and delivery, as the about page explains. At under three hours’ flying time, Bengaluru is close enough for regular visits and far enough that the design must be settled before the site opens:
No. Since 1 September 2025 the city has been run by the GBA and its five corporations, and plan approvals go through the GBA’s online portal. Plots at the city’s edge may sit with another planning authority. Anything structural — an extension, a new floor, a wall that carries load — is checked against the sanctioned plan before we design it.
By needing less of it. Joinery, jaali and painted panels are made by artisans in Jaipur, which moves water-hungry work off the Bengaluru site. Wet trades wait for a treated-water supply, since the water board has banned drinking water for construction in recent dry seasons. Planting is chosen with a landscape designer for the dry months.
Yes. Upasna Aurallis, a workspace in our portfolio, shows the approach in lime, cane and boucle. The working plan still leads: desks, meeting rooms, services, acoustics and AV are resolved first, with specialists, and the craft goes onto the surfaces people touch and see. A warm office is mostly a quieter one, with better light.
Usually everything inside and a good deal at the edges: layouts, kitchens, joinery, lighting, finishes, and the verandah and garden within the plot. Facade, height and boundary changes go through the association and, if structural, the planning authority. We read the community’s rules before the concept, so the design never depends on a permission that will not come.
It is far enough that we plan for it. Drawings, samples and craft orders are settled before work starts, so fewer questions reach the site at all. Our site lead visits at the stages that decide quality, and the local contractor keeps the studio updated between visits. What we will not do is claim a standing Bengaluru team; it is assembled for each project.