Journal

Most people looking for an architect in Delhi are actually trying to answer a prior question: do I need one at all, or will a good contractor and a set of reference images get me there? It is a fair question, and the honest answer depends on the project. Here is what an architect actually […]

Our studio is in Greater Kailash, and a good share of the homes we work on are within a few kilometres of it. That is partly convenience and partly conviction: these buildings reward close attention in a way newer construction does not. If you are looking for an interior designer in Greater Kailash, here is

The farmhouse belt south of Delhi — Chhatarpur, Dera Mandi, Satbari, Mandi, Sainik Farms, Westend Greens — is where most of the city’s ground-up private houses actually get built. It is also where budgets most often come apart, because a farmhouse is not a large house on a plot. It is a house plus an

You have three quotes on the table. One is far cheaper than the others. Everyone you ask says “go with your gut.” That is not advice, it is a shrug. A quotation is a readable document if you know what to look for. Here is how to read one properly, line by line, and the

Building a house from the ground up is the only project where you control everything — the plan, the light, the structure, the way rooms meet the garden. It is also the project with the most places for a budget to quietly expand. Here is how villa construction cost in India actually breaks down, what

Bathrooms carry the highest cost per square foot of any room in a house, and the highest risk. Everything in them is wet, everything is hidden behind tile, and the consequences of doing it cheaply arrive two years later as a stain on someone’s ceiling. Here is what a bathroom renovation actually costs in India,

The kitchen is the most expensive room per square foot in most Indian homes, and the one where quotations are hardest to compare. Two quotes for the same layout can differ enormously, and almost all of the difference hides in three lines: carcass, hardware and counter. Here is what drives modular kitchen cost in Delhi

A 3 BHK is the most commonly designed home in Delhi NCR, and the one where budget expectations and quoted prices diverge most sharply. Two families with identical flats in the same tower can spend amounts that differ by a factor of four, and both can be spending sensibly. Here is what actually drives 3

A note on this list. We are Pochē Aesthetics, a residential practice in New Delhi, and we are on this list. We have said so at the top rather than at the bottom, because a roundup that hides who wrote it is not worth reading. The practices below are ones whose work we know or

There is a gap between a home being complete and a home feeling finished. Everything is built, the snagging is done, the furniture has arrived — and it still reads like a very good showflat. Clean, correct, and somehow not yours. Closing that gap is the least discussed part of residential design and, for many