Every large Indian home runs on spaces nobody photographs: the utility, the staff room, the store, the pump room. They are planned last, given whatever is left over, and then determine how smoothly the house actually functions for the next twenty years.
Here is how to plan the service and utility areas of a home properly — what each needs, how much space, and the decisions that cannot be fixed later.
The utility area
In a Delhi home the utility carries washing, drying, cleaning equipment, ironing, bulk storage and usually the water treatment. Builder provision is almost always inadequate.
What it needs:
- 4–6 sq m minimum to work properly
- Washing machine and dryer positions with dedicated power, inlet and a proper drain — not a hose into a floor trap
- A deep sink, big enough to actually wash a mop bucket in
- A counter for folding and sorting. The most-requested thing people realise they are missing
- Drying space — see below, because this is the one nobody plans
- Ventilation, mechanical if there is no window. A damp sealed utility in monsoon will smell and grow mould
- Floor drain, with the floor falling to it
- Shelving for cleaning supplies, bulk groceries, tools
Drying is the Delhi-specific problem. Most Indian households line-dry, and most NCR societies prohibit visible laundry on balconies. If you do not plan a drying space, laundry ends up on chairs in bedrooms. The solutions that work: a dedicated covered service balcony with a pulley or retractable line, a ceiling-mounted drying rack in the utility, or a condenser dryer with the power and ventilation planned for it.
Staff accommodation
If your household employs live-in staff, this room deserves honest planning rather than whatever space is left.
A room that works has natural light and ventilation, a window that opens, space for a bed and a cupboard, its own bathroom with a shower and a geyser, a fan and a light on sensible switching, a power socket, and reasonable acoustic separation from the family’s rooms in both directions.
Practically: it should be accessible from the service areas without passing through the main living spaces, and it should not be the hottest room in the house, which is what happens when it is placed on a west wall with no shade.
This is not a complicated specification. It is simply one that gets dropped when the plan gets tight, and it is worth holding onto — a household runs better when the people working in it are comfortable, and it is the right thing to do.
The service entry
A separate service access is one of the genuinely useful features of a well-planned house. It means deliveries, laundry, staff, bulk groceries and rubbish do not come through the front door and across the living room.
Where it is possible, route it to arrive at or near the kitchen and utility. Where a second door is not possible — as in most apartments — the equivalent is a planned drop zone near the entrance with closed storage, so deliveries have somewhere to land.
Storage you will regret not planning
Bulk grocery store. Indian households buy in quantity. A dedicated store or a tall unit in the utility beats stacking sacks in a bedroom.
Luggage. Suitcases are large, seasonal and awkward. A loft or a high cupboard sized for them is worth planning rather than discovering.
Seasonal items. Quilts and heavy bedding through summer, coolers, festival decorations. Significant volume, used twice a year.
Cleaning equipment. Vacuum, mop, bucket, brooms, ladder. If there is no cupboard for these they live behind a door.
Bins. Wet and dry segregation needs two bins somewhere that is neither the middle of the kitchen nor outside the front door. Build it in.
Plant and services spaces
On an independent house or farmhouse these are substantial and must be designed in rather than bolted on.
- Pump room — dry, ventilated, accessible, with drainage. Pumps are noisy, so not against a bedroom wall
- Water treatment — softener and RO. Across most of NCR a softener is effectively necessary, and it needs a planned position and plumbing at first fix, not a retrofit into a corner
- Underground and overhead tanks, with access for cleaning
- Generator, with an acoustic enclosure and ventilation, positioned where the noise and exhaust do not reach the living spaces or your neighbour’s
- AC outdoor units — airflow, service access, and screened from view and earshot. The most commonly botched service decision in Indian homes
- Electrical distribution — a board per floor on a multi-level house
- Inverter and batteries — ventilated, not in a sealed cupboard
Designed in, all of this disappears. Added afterwards, it sits in the garden or on the terrace for the life of the house. This is the single clearest argument for resolving services alongside the architecture rather than after it.
The test for a well-planned service layout
Walk through these five journeys on the drawing and count the awkward moments:
- Groceries from the car to the kitchen
- Dirty laundry from a bedroom to the washing machine, then to drying, then back
- Rubbish from the kitchen to wherever it leaves the house
- A delivery arriving while the family is in the living room
- Someone servicing the AC or the pump
If any of those crosses the main living space, goes up and down a staircase, or has nowhere to put things down, it will irritate someone every single day.
Getting it right
We draw the service side of a house with the same care as the front — utility layout, drying provision, staff accommodation, storage schedule, and every plant space located, ventilated and accessible — because these are the spaces that decide whether a beautiful house is also an easy one to run.
If you are planning a home, tell us about it. See also kitchen planning, villa design, and what a drawing set contains.
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.