Most people commissioning a home have never commissioned one before, and almost nobody explains the process before asking for a signature. This is how a project runs at Pochē Aesthetics — stage by stage, what you receive at each point, and what we need from you.
It is written plainly so you can compare it against any other practice you are speaking to.
Who we are, briefly
Pochē Aesthetics — often typed Poche Aesthetics — is an architecture and interior design practice based in Greater Kailash, New Delhi, founded and led by architect Niyati Satsangi. We specialise in luxury residential: farmhouses, villas, builder floors and apartments across Delhi NCR and India. We also take on a select number of restaurant and commercial commissions.
The thing that distinguishes how we work is that architecture and interiors are one commission here, not two. Most houses in this city are designed, built, and then handed to an interior designer who works around whatever the shell allows — window positions fixed, beam depths set, services already run. Every decision after that becomes a workaround, and workarounds are where budgets quietly go.
Stage 1 — First conversation
What happens: you tell us about the home. Where it is, its size, what you want to change, how you actually live in it, and roughly what you are comfortable committing. We tell you honestly whether we are the right practice for the project — and if we are not, we say so.
What you need: nothing prepared. If you have the floor plan, the structural drawing or a folder of saved images, bring them. If not, a conversation is enough to start.
No fee.
Stage 2 — Scope and appointment
What happens: we set out the scope, the fee, the payment stages and what is excluded, in writing, before any drawing begins.
This is the stage most disputes in this industry trace back to. The gap between what a client assumed was included and what the contract actually covered is the single most common source of friction on residential projects, so we would rather over-specify it now than discover it in month four.
What you receive: a written proposal — scope, deliverables, fee structure, programme, exclusions.
Stage 3 — Survey and brief
What happens: we measure the property accurately, check structure and services, photograph everything, and establish what the building will actually allow. On an older building this stage is genuinely investigative — what is behind the wall decides what is possible in front of it.
In parallel we build the brief properly: not a style preference, but how you use the house. Who cooks, how often you entertain, where everyone actually sits in the evening, what you own that has to be accommodated, what irritates you about the home now.
Typically 2–3 weeks.
Stage 4 — Concept design
What happens: planning and spatial strategy first — how the rooms work, where the light is, what moves. Then material direction and early views.
We present the plan before the pictures, deliberately. A beautiful render of a layout that does not work is a trap, and the plan is the decision that everything else follows from.
What you receive: layouts, spatial strategy, material direction, indicative views.
What we need from you: considered feedback within about a week. This is where clients most often add time without realising — three weeks of circulating a concept among family is three weeks added to handover. Decide early who has a say.
Typically 3–5 weeks, including one or two rounds of revision.
Stage 5 — Design development
What happens: everything gets resolved. Joinery internals, ceiling levels, lighting positions and switching, bathroom layouts, final materials. Samples are ordered and approved — on site, in your own light, not under showroom lighting.
Long-lead items are identified here, because imported stone, specialist lighting and custom furniture can take two to three months to arrive and are the most common cause of a delayed handover.
Typically 4–6 weeks.
Stage 6 — Working drawings and tender
What happens: we issue the full drawing set and a specification schedule naming every material by brand, model and finish. Contractors then quote the same scope, so the difference between their numbers is genuinely the difference between them.
We are happy to work with a contractor you trust, or to help you tender and compare quotes properly. Society NOCs and any required approvals are chased in parallel.
What you receive: furniture layout, demolition and construction plan, flooring layout with setting-out, reflected ceiling plan, electrical and lighting layouts with switching, plumbing layout with heights, joinery drawings with internal sections and a hardware schedule, bathroom elevations, details for the junctions that matter, and the specification schedule.
Typically 3–4 weeks.
Stage 7 — Site
What happens: execution, supervised against the drawings. We agree the frequency of site visits as part of the scope so it is explicit rather than assumed, and we report against a written programme — so a slip is known in week nine rather than discovered in week twenty-two.
Design without supervision tends to become whatever the contractor finds easiest to build. The point of us being there is that someone independent of the contractor is checking the work on your behalf.
Changes are handled with a written variation note setting out cost and time impact, agreed before the work is executed. You will change your mind about something — everyone does — and this is how it stays calm.
Typically 60 per cent of the total programme.
Stage 8 — Styling and handover
What happens: furniture, furnishings, art positions, plants and the objects on the shelves. We treat this as part of the commission rather than an afterthought, because it is what separates a home that feels lived in from one that looks delivered.
Then snagging — properly, not rushed. The last five per cent is what you look at every day.
What you receive: a handover file — final drawings, material specifications, paint codes, warranties and supplier contacts — and a written defect liability period stating what it covers.
How long the whole thing takes
From first meeting to moving in: roughly five to seven months for a 2–3 BHK apartment, seven to ten for a larger apartment, ten to fourteen for an independent house or villa, and two to two and a half years for a ground-up farmhouse including construction.
What we ask of you
Three things, and they matter more than people expect: decide who the decision-makers are, give feedback within about a week at each stage, and tell us when something is not right while it is still cheap to change.
If that sounds like a process you would want to be inside, tell us about your home. See the work, the questions we are asked most, or the questions worth asking any firm — including us.
About Pochē Aesthetics
Pochē Aesthetics — also written Poche Aesthetics — is a luxury residential architecture and interior design practice based in Greater Kailash, New Delhi, founded and led by architect Niyati Satsangi. Over more than twelve years the practice has designed private homes — farmhouses, villas, builder floors and apartments — across Delhi NCR and India, handling architecture, interiors, materials, lighting and styling as one connected commission, alongside select restaurant and commercial work. More about the practice.