The practice
Nilayaa means a dwelling
Nilaya is Sanskrit for a dwelling — the place something comes to rest. We took the name because it describes the job better than the word interiors does. A house is not a surface to be finished. It is somewhere a family settles.
The studio has worked since 2016 across Tamil Nadu and Kerala, mostly on houses, and mostly on houses that already exist.
How we work
Three standing rules
Remove before adding
On an older building the first proposal is almost always subtraction. Most houses we are called to have been added to for decades.
Materials that age
Lime, teak, stone and brass all look better in year ten than in year one. We avoid finishes that only ever look worse.
One person throughout
Whoever comes on the first visit stays on the project until handover. Nothing is passed to a delivery team.
Process
From first visit to handover
01
First visit
We come to the house and spend a day there. No drawings, no proposal — we want to see the light at more than one hour.
02
Brief and measure
A measured survey, a written brief, and a budget both sides actually believe.
03
Design
Plans, materials and a full drawing set. Two rounds of revision is typical; we would rather resolve it here than on site.
04
Making
We work with a fixed set of workshops we have used for years, and we are on site weekly.
05
Handover
Every material in the house comes with a note on how to look after it.
The team
Eight people
Four designers, two who run site, and two in the workshop. Work is led personally rather than assigned — the studio is deliberately the size it is, and takes on a small number of projects a year so that stays true.