Architecture of permanence | Aparna Kaushik Design Group | Architect of the Month
A boutique passion project turns into a global powerhouse. We map Aparna Kaushik's quest for timeless design
Eighteen years is a long time in the world of design, long enough for a firm to “legally become an adult,” as architect Aparna Kaushik puts it. What began as a five-person boutique studio driven by pure passion has evolved into a formidable team of over 100 professionals. Today, the Aparna Kaushik Design Group, isn’t just building homes, its building legacies. From the sprawling estates of Delhi to the vertical luxury of Dubai, Kaushik is proving that while trends are a sprint, timelessness is a marathon, one she has mastered.
Eighteen years is a long time in the world of design, long enough for a firm to “legally become an adult,” as architect Aparna Kaushik puts it. What began as a five-person boutique studio driven by pure passion has evolved into a formidable team of over 100 professionals. Today, the Aparna Kaushik Design Group, isn’t just building homes, its building legacies. From the sprawling estates of Delhi to the vertical luxury of Dubai, Kaushik is proving that while trends are a sprint, timelessness is a marathon, one she has mastered.
NEW BLUEPRINT
The journey wasn’t always about business. For the first eight years, Kaushik viewed her work as a creative pursuit rather than a larger venture. However, as the scale of her residential estates grew, so did the need for a robust infrastructure. A pivotal shift occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic when she moved her base from the central hubs of South Delhi to Noida. The move was strategic, designed to create a design ecosystem. “We had interns and kids coming from Bombay, Chennai, and Pune,” Kaushik explains. “It was important to have a space where they could have their own ecosystem.” This move didn’t just support her team; it reclaimed her time, allowing her to balance a gruelling pan-India and international travel schedule with focused studio work.
ANTI-TREND PHILOSOPHY
If there is one word that defines Kaushik’s work, it is timelessness. She is a vocal critic of fast architecture, the kind of trendy design that looks dated within five years. “I always try for something that would last,” she says. “Successful design shouldn’t punch you in the face or knock you out after two years.” This philosophy extends to her distaste for the excessive use of metal and fluting in modern homes. To her, these are often “poor taste” shortcuts that make a residence feel like an Italian furniture showroom rather than a home. “A home should not feel like you just opened the boxes and placed them. It needs personality.”
SUSTAINABILITY WITH A TWIST
Kaushik’s take on sustainability is refreshingly blunt. She dismisses the fad of placing just one eco-friendly light in a home or simply having a rainwater pit, as mere tips of the iceberg. To her, the greatest criminal waste of energy is a house that is demolished every 20 years because it was built on a trend or failed to anticipate a growing family’s needs. “True sustainability is a home that isn’t broken and remade,” she asserts. By designing a timeless luxe space and ignoring the fashion of the moment, she creates assets that appreciate in design value. In facts she cites the Imperial Hotel in Delhi as a benchmark of a space that upgrades its technology without ever losing its soul or history.
MINIMALISM IS A MYTH
In a world obsessed with less is more, Kaushik is a proud maximalist. She labels ultra-minimalist homes as a facade. “Life is not Zen; life is in the shades of grey,” she laughs. She observes that families in minimal homes inevitably add 100 things back in within a few years just to function. Borrowing a sentiment from her inspiration, Peter Marino, she questions why one would limit themselves to a few colours when the world is so naturally vibrant. Her homes are layered, textured, and built for the beautiful chaos of real life.
MULTI-GENERATIONAL MASTERCLASS
One of Kaushik’s greatest recent triumphs was a Mumbai project that merged three apartments for a multi-generational family. The challenge? Marrying the tastes of a Gen Z teenager with a 75-year-old grandparent. The result was a seamless blend of, contemporary classic for the seniors; contemporary modern for the second unit; and mid-century modern for the third. By maintaining a singular architectural rhythm through the common areas and using curated furniture to pivot the mood, she proved that a home can be a collection of different lives without feeling disjointed.
ON THE HORIZON
As she looks ahead, Kaushik is focused on moving away from people-dependent processes through technology, while simultaneously doubling down on hand-work. She wants to move away from ordering furniture by code numbers and instead travel to the dens of artisans to curate bespoke pieces.
As for her ultimate dream project? “I want a haveli,” she confesses. Inspired by the way Willis Polk and Peter Marino have reimagined historic estates, Kaushik hopes to one day apply her signature brand of timeless maximalism to a traditional Indian haveli, proving once and for all that great design only gets better with age.
