A Paris apartment usually arrives with its proportion settled: tall windows, cornices, a marble chimneypiece, parquet laid in point de Hongrie. The work is rarely to add. It is to edit, repair and let the rooms breathe — within what the copropriété and, in protected quarters, the Architecte des Bâtiments de France will accept.
We are a Jaipur studio — every finished NYKS project is in Jaipur or Udaipur — and we take projects in Paris. We take on the apartment as a whole: design, craft and furniture come from Jaipur; the registered architecte or structural engineer the law or the building calls for joins the team in Paris; French entreprises carry out the works; and we lead the design and inspect. Nishtha Kandoi, our principal designer, spent close to six months on exchange at the École Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris — the city’s rooms are ones she has studied, not guessed at.
None of these is in Paris. They are here because they show what a Haussmann apartment asks for: ceilings and light handled with restraint, objects with a history, and a sense of how much a room can hold before it stops breathing.
Jaipur is three and a half hours ahead of Paris in summer and four and a half in winter, so the studio day, 10:00 to 20:00 IST, covers most of a Paris working day. Air France and Air India fly nonstop from Delhi in roughly nine and a half to eleven hours. Being small, the studio keeps one hand on the apartment from first sketch to last fitting — more on how NYKS works.
‘Architecte’ is a protected title in France under the law of 3 January 1977, so we do not use it for ourselves; where a project needs one, a registered architecte joins the team and we lead the design alongside them. An architect is compulsory when an individual needs a permis de construire for more than 150 m² of floor area; most apartment refits need no permis at all. What governs them is the building:
Paris has an oceanic climate with about 640 mm of rain a year, and summers that have grown fierce: the city reached 42.6 °C on 25 July 2019, and at night it can run 4 °C warmer than its outer suburbs. Top floors under the zinc mansard feel it first. There, bedrooms want working shutters and lined curtains, lime plaster rather than acrylic finishes, and cane, linen and cotton rather than heavy synthetics.
Below the roof, the fabric is the brief. Parquet is restored before it is replaced; mouldings, boiseries and chimneypieces are repaired; new work is recognisably new — restrained, well made, not pretending to be nineteenth century. Solid timber made in Jaipur is kiln-dried and allowed to settle before final fitting, so doors and panels stay true through a centrally heated winter.
A Haussmann room already supplies its ornament, so Indian craft works as counterpoint: block-printed linen at a tall window, a hand-forged brass sconce against white panelling, a stone jaali screening a radiator, thikri mirror work in a small room where it can glow. One voice, placed with care, and removable if a later owner prefers the room plain.
It also suits the way Parisians furnish — slowly, and with things that have a history. A piece from NYKS Bespoke sits beside a flea-market commode or a family armoire as another object with a maker and a story, not as a set.
Usually not by law. An architect is compulsory when an individual needs a permis de construire for more than 150 m² of floor area, and most apartment refits need no permis. Opening a load-bearing wall still calls for a structural engineer and the copropriété’s vote. ‘Architecte’ is a protected title in France, which we do not use for ourselves; where one is needed, a registered architecte joins the team and we lead the design alongside them.
Anything that touches common parts — load-bearing walls, shared pipes, often the windows — or changes the building’s exterior. That needs authorisation from the assemblée générale, by the majority of article 25 of the 1965 law, and the règlement de copropriété may add its own limits. We prepare the drawings and a clear description for the syndic, so the request can go on the agenda of the next meeting.
Yes. The Marais is a site patrimonial remarquable with its own conservation plan, and authorisations there need the agreement of the Architecte des Bâtiments de France. The plan can protect interior elements as well as the façade, so even a change to panelling or a staircase may need consent. We check the plan for your address before designing and allow the extra time in the programme.
It shapes how she reads a room. She spent close to six months on exchange at the École Spéciale d’Architecture and credits it with sharpening how she thinks about proportion and restraint. It is personal experience rather than a Paris portfolio — the studio’s finished work is all in Jaipur and Udaipur — but it means these apartments are familiar ground, not a style copied from photographs.
Crated in Jaipur, railed from the inland container depot at Kanakpura to Mundra or Nhava Sheva, then shipped to Le Havre or Fos and cleared through French customs. Wooden furniture carries no EU duty; hand-woven cotton rugs, handmade ceramics and lamps carry up to about 8% depending on the code. French import VAT of 20% applies to all of it. An EU–India trade agreement is not yet in force, so we budget at today’s rates.