Residence · Kolhapur · 2026

A house that opens upward

Sapna led the interior design and site inputs on this house, working with Metru Studio, the project architects.

The family were building three floors on a plot in Kolhapur, and what came back to them first was not a plan of rooms. It was a section. The house had height to give away at its centre, and the design is an argument for spending all of it in one place rather than sharing it out.

The double-height living room photographed from the first-floor landing — the glass balustrade in the foreground, a chandelier hanging the full height of the void, the stone and teak wall below.

Type: Residence
Where: Kolhapur
Year: 2026
Services: Space planning

The brief

Three floors on a plot in Kolhapur, drawn from the section outward. Katha led the interior design and stayed with it on site, alongside the project architects, from the first 3D views to handover.

What we did

The centre of the house was opened through two storeys, and the first-floor landing pulled back to a glass balustrade so the rooms above look down into it. That one move is what the stone is for: a single full-height panel on the long wall, crossed by a diagonal band of teak. The wall opposite is brass fluting the full height of the room, with the shrine set into a backlit jaali beside it, so the two working walls of the ground floor answer each other instead of competing.

Upstairs the rooms are quieter and the colour does the work — a blush kitchen, scalloped pale-blue wardrobes in one bedroom, glossy pink in the next, a terracotta bed under timber panelling in a third. Each was drawn as a joinery elevation before anything was cut, which is why the wardrobes that got built carry the same scallop, the same proportion and the same handle line as the views the family approved.

The drawing set ran from the first 3D views in October 2024 through bed and console details, plumbing layouts for four bathrooms, electrical looping, and a lighting measurement plan for each of the three floors.

The result

The photographs here were taken at handover, before the family moved in. What is in them is what was built, not what was staged for a camera. Set beside views drawn nearly two years earlier, they are the same rooms. That is the whole claim this project is here to make.

Drawn, then built

The double-height volume

A 3D view of the double-height living room, furnished — a stone feature wall, a television on a timber panel, a blue sofa. — What we drew

The same room built — the timber panel, the television and the white console in the positions the drawing put them, under the balcony. — What we built

Photographed at handover, before the family moved anything in.

The kitchen

The dining wall

A 3D view of the dining room — a fluted metallic wall, a dark table, a sculptural pendant. — What we drew

The blue bedroom

A 3D view of a bedroom with scalloped, glass-fronted wardrobes in pale blue. — What we drew

The bedroom built — the same pale blue wardrobes with the same scalloped base, and the bed against the far wall. — What we built

The living room

The double-height living wall under construction — the first stone slab set, a ladder against it, the floor still bare. — While it was going up

The same wall finished — a full-height stone panel crossed by a diagonal band of teak, the television set into it, a white console below. — Finished

Two days, two positions — not a matched pair.

The rooms

The double-height living room with sheer curtains running the whole height of the wall, a chandelier above and the stone and teak panel to the right. — The full-height curtains

The living room from its far corner — a teak panel carrying the television, a white console below it, tall windows and a marble floor. — The far corner of the living room

A bed upholstered in rust velvet against a teak-panelled wall, with a wall light beside it and long curtains behind. — The master bedroom

A terracotta bed under a stone headboard panel, with ribbed timber running across the ceiling and two wall lights. — The terracotta bed

A curved timber shelf niche built into the corner beside a bed, under a window blind. — A shelf niche, cut into the corner

The terracotta bedroom seen wider — the bed on the left, a built-in desk and mirror running along the wall to the right. — The same room, and its desk

Around the house

An arched teak front door with a carved white panel set into it, under a slatted timber ceiling. — The front door

A timber-framed screen of backlit onyx panels standing beside the staircase. — The stair screen

A corridor with a timber floor, looking through a teak-lined door frame into the room beyond. — The first-floor corridor

A bedroom lined on one side with white gloss wardrobes, the bed on a timber base. — The wardrobe bedroom

Glossy pink wardrobe fronts along one wall of a bedroom, with a bed in front of them. — The pink room

A bedroom with a deep blue wall, patterned sheer curtains and a bed against the window. — The blue room

From the drawing set

Three of the twenty sheets this house was built from. Every one of them is a vector plot, so they are as sharp as the screen you are reading them on — which is also why Chapter III's floor plan is a real drawing rather than a picture of one.

A drawing sheet of the living room console, in plan, elevation and section, with dimensions. — Console — details

A drawing sheet of a bed and its headboard panel, drawn in elevation and section with dimensions. — Bed and bed back — details

A drawing sheet of the dining panel and the shrine beside it, drawn in elevation with dimensions. — Dining panel and mandir — details

The other projects

Residence · Chennai · 2023A shrine, and the house around it Residence · 2023A staircase with a house around it

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