Building Our First Project Together
Updated: Jul 27
When people visit our studio today, they usually notice the exposed brick walls, the courtyard, the swings, or the light filtering through the bamboo blinds. Some ask about the lime plaster, others about the tiled roof. Conversations often begin with the building.
But for us, the story of this studio started much before the first brick was laid.
It began when Shivani & Devesh decided to merge their individual practices with already merged practices of Amol & Ekta.
After coming together as The Collective Praxis, we suddenly found ourselves asking a very practical question: Where do we work from now? The Uday Nagar studio that had served Amol & Ekta well for years had become too small.
We needed more space. But we also needed a place that felt like us.
Leaving a Place We Loved
Moving out of the old studio was not an easy decision.
It wasn't just an office. It had become part of our everyday lives.
One of us would often drop by even on Sundays, just to spend a quiet morning there with a cup of tea. The swing in the verandah had become everyone's favourite corner. Conversations happened there. So did long discussions about projects, ideas and life. Clients loved the warmth of the place, and so did we.
Starting again meant leaving all of that behind.
It also meant investing again.
Amol & Ekta had only recently invested in setting up the previous office. Financially, it wasn't the smartest time to start over. We weren't drawing salaries from the practice, and every rupee we invested into the studio was money we were choosing not to take home.
We all hesitated.
But none of us questioned whether we should do it.
Looking back, we weren't really investing in a building. We were investing in the practice we wanted to build together.
Seeing Possibility
Unlike the previous studio, which was an interior renovation, this time we had an entire plot were Devsh, Shivani & Shurayu had already started building a studio.
When we first looked at it, it wasn't much to look at. There were overgrown patches of grass, a few tiny existing rooms and a site that most people would probably have ignored.
What caught our attention were the trees.
Three tall coconut trees and a few three mature palms already stood on the site. They gave the place a sense of character long before we drew the first line.
We didn't see an incomplete structure.
We saw the possibility of building something from the ground up.
The fact that the site was away from the city's commercial centre didn't bother us as much as it seemed to bother everyone else. People wondered why an architecture practice would move away from the busiest parts of the city.
For us, that distance meant freedom.
Freedom to build the kind of workplace we wanted instead of trying to fit ourselves into an existing commercial space.
Designing a Place That Felt Like Us
We never began by discussing finishes or colours.
Instead, we kept asking ourselves a much simpler question.
If someone walked into our studio for the first time, what should they understand about us without us saying a word?
The answers slowly became the design.
We wanted warmth instead of grandeur.
Natural materials instead of decorative finishes.
Spaces where conversations could happen as easily as formal meetings.
We kept returning to materials that felt honest.
Exposed brick because we loved its character and because it didn't need to pretend to be something else.
Lime plaster because we wanted to understand how the material behaved over time, not just how it looked on day one.
Wood because it brought warmth.
Black Kadappa stone because it balanced the exposed steel structure and grounded the interiors.
Even details that most visitors barely notice became important to us—wooden windows, deep Kadappa sills, bamboo blinds and carefully detailed openings.
One discussion, however, lasted much longer than the others.
Should we install security grills?
The site was on the outskirts of the city. Everyone had genuine concerns about safety.
But eventually we decided against them.
We didn't want to build a workplace that felt like a cage.
That decision still defines the way the studio feels today.
More Than Drawings
Like most architects, we thought we had solved everything on paper.
The site quickly reminded us otherwise.
Construction became a daily exercise in questioning decisions, changing details and solving problems we had never anticipated.
There wasn't a single site visit where everyone agreed on everything.
Some discussions were about money.
Others were about proportions.
Sometimes we debated whether a detail was worth the effort. Sometimes we argued because each of us imagined the same space differently.
Those conversations almost always ended with someone picking up a pencil, sketching directly on a wall or pointing at a half-built corner of the site.
Looking back, those disagreements were probably healthy. The building became better because it was questioned repeatedly.
Learning by Building
We had planned a budget.
The studio had other plans.
As construction progressed, the investment grew beyond what we had initially imagined. Some things simply couldn't be left unfinished. Other details only became obvious once the building was taking shape.
We chose to keep the furniture simple.
Instead of expensive finishes, we worked with fabricated plywood and retained its natural surface wherever possible.
Money was saved where it didn't affect the experience of the building.
Where it mattered, we chose not to compromise.
Even after the inauguration, the studio wasn't truly finished.
The first summer tested our ideas. The first monsoon tested them even more.
A week of relentless rain revealed leakages that hadn't shown up before. Waterproofing had to be improved. Some construction shortcuts came back to remind us why shortcuts are rarely worth taking.
One experiment with ducted air-conditioning lasted barely a month before we accepted that it simply wasn't right for the space.
We removed it.
We learned.
We moved on.
Architecture has a way of humbling you like that.
The Last Few Weeks
The final weeks before inauguration are some of our favourite memories.
For nearly two weeks, the office stopped functioning like an office.
Instead of working on client projects, we were working on our own.
A snag list became our daily checklist.
We cleaned.
We plastered.
We painted.
We shifted furniture.
We swept floors.
We solved one small problem after another.
Those days were exhausting.
They were also incredibly satisfying.
Someone once asked us what was the first thing we moved into the new studio.
The answer still makes us smile.
Ourselves.
The Details That Stayed With Us
Not everything in the studio is new.
The bamboo blinds came with us from the old office because they had become part of its identity.
The swing made its return too.
In fact, we have two.
Over time, these little things became just as important as the architecture itself.
Visitors often remember the courtyard.
Some notice the swings.
Others stop to touch the exposed brick or ask about the lime plaster.
The central lawn has quietly become the heart of the building. It connects the meeting room, the partners' workspace and the staff studio. It is where we gather for evening tea, celebrate milestones, host conversations and occasionally step away from our desks when we need a break.
Looking back, we realise that our favourite spaces aren't the formal ones.
They're the spaces in between.
The verandahs.
The courtyard.
The shaded edges.
The places where work naturally slows down and conversations begin.
Every project that leaves this office carries something it first learned here.
Perhaps that's why this building will always be special to us.
It was the first project we built together.
Not for a client.
For ourselves.
And in the process, it quietly shaped the practice we were trying to become.
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