A New York apartment gives you very little floor area, a building that may be a century old, and a co-op or condo board with an alteration agreement and opinions of its own. Precision is not optional. Every inch needs a job, and the drawings have to satisfy the board before they reach a contractor.
The studio works from C Scheme, Jaipur; our completed interiors are all in Jaipur and Udaipur, and we take projects in New York. Nishtha Kandoi, our principal designer, has worked at KPF in New York and at Gensler and AS+GG in Chicago — personal experience of how large American projects are documented and delivered, not NYKS projects. Here we lead the design and make the craft and furniture in Jaipur; the New York-licensed architect or engineer on the team files what needs filing; licensed contractors build; and we coordinate the whole and inspect.
What we can show is residential work in which each room has one clear purpose and built-in form does what loose furniture would only crowd, and pieces made to travel.
Jaipur is nine and a half hours ahead of New York in summer and ten and a half in winter. The studio’s evening is your early morning — 08:00 to 10:30 in summer, 08:00 to 09:30 in winter — so that is when calls happen, and complete drawings carry the rest. Design, craft and site follow-through stay with the same few people in Jaipur; read about the studio.
New York’s Education Law lets only licensed architects practise architecture or use the title ‘architect’, and reserves ‘certified interior designer’ for designers certified by the State. We use neither title for ourselves. Interior design is open practice in New York and that is what NYKS leads, with the licensed architect or engineer appointed alongside us so one team covers the job:
Floor area is the most expensive material in the apartment, so joinery works harder than furniture: a banquette with storage, a bed in a niche, a wall of cabinetry that hides the radiator and the building’s workings. Pre-war buildings bring plaster walls, radiators and out-of-square everything, so we detail to the survey rather than to an idealised drawing, and treat sound between apartments as seriously as the board will.
The city’s heat season runs from 1 October to 31 May, and radiators leave winter air dry; summers are humid. Solid timber made in Jaipur is dried for that swing and left in the apartment to settle before it is fixed, and finishes are chosen to move with the seasons rather than crack.
Everything made in Jaipur for a New York apartment is drawn against the building’s service elevator, stairs and doorways before production starts, and large pieces are designed to come apart. A carved stone jaali becomes a radiator screen; a hand-forged brass pendant anchors a dining corner; a hand-painted cabinet holds a bar in a hallway. Upholstered pieces are built to the federal flammability standard, 16 CFR part 1640, and carry its label.
Duties need care. US tariffs on furniture and on goods from India have changed repeatedly since 2025, so each piece is classified with a licensed customs broker when it is ordered and the duty goes into the budget.
A New York State-licensed Registered Architect or Professional Engineer on the team: by law the filing is theirs. We prepare the interior design drawings, the specification and the craft and furniture package, coordinate them into the filing set, and stay with the job through the board review, the build by a licensed contractor and the snag list.
An alteration agreement and a review. Expect plans checked by the building’s own architect or engineer, proof of your contractor’s insurance, often a security deposit, fixed working hours and agreed start and finish dates. We assemble the drawings, specifications and schedule the board asks for, so its review starts from a complete package rather than a sketch, and we answer the building architect’s comments directly.
No, and we do not use the title. In New York State ‘certified interior designer’ is reserved for designers certified under the Education Law; the practice of interior design itself is not restricted. What we bring is the studio’s craft and furniture work from Jaipur and Nishtha Kandoi’s training — a B.S. Arch (Honors) from DAAP at the University of Cincinnati — and her experience at KPF, Gensler and AS+GG.
Walls that are not square, plaster that hides old wiring and pipes, radiators that cannot simply move, and paint that may contain lead: in homes built before 1978, paid work that disturbs it must follow the EPA’s lead-safe rule. If the building is a designated landmark or in a historic district, the Landmarks Preservation Commission may need to approve the work. We survey before designing and keep contingency in the programme for what the walls reveal.
At the moments that set the quality of the work, not every week: survey and setting out, a last look before walls and ceilings are closed up, the week joinery and craft are installed, and handover. Between visits the contractor builds from resolved drawings, and we review progress by photographs and video calls in the New York morning. Because each trip is long, every visit is planned around a decision that has to be made in the room.