Aurelia designs and builds a small number of private residences each year, on the coast and in the old quarters of the city. Never more than six at a time.
View residences → Begin a conversationWe are not a developer. There is no inventory, no ready-to-move tower, no brochure with a swimming pool that does not exist. Every Aurelia house is commissioned by the person who will live in it, and drawn for the plot it stands on.
Each was drawn around a single constraint the client gave us — a tree, a view, a grandmother's staircase.
A courtyard plan that keeps every room one step from open air.
Kota stone and teak, built to survive forty years of salt air.
A restoration of an 1920s house, doubled in size without looking it.
"They spent two afternoons in the empty plot before drawing anything. I thought it was theatre. Four years in, the morning light in the kitchen is the reason I get up early."
"We asked for something modern. What they gave us is something that will still look right in 2060. Those are apparently different requests."
First conversations are unhurried and without obligation. We take on six projects a year and choose them carefully — as, we hope, will you.
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We do not carry house types between sites. Where the sun falls in December, where the neighbour's wall casts shade, where the old tamarind stands — these settle the plan long before taste does.
Kota stone, athangudi tile, teak, lime plaster, terracotta. Materials that look better at twenty years than at two, and that a local mason can repair without a catalogue.
Cross-ventilation, deep verandas, courtyards and high ceilings first; air conditioning as a supplement, not a foundation. Our houses run at roughly half the cooling load of comparable builds.
No reveal. No unveiling. You will have seen every drawing, every material sample and every cost revision before it is built. The house should feel inevitable by the time you move in.
An unhurried meeting, usually on your plot. No fee, no drawings, no obligation. We are deciding whether we are right for each other.
Survey, soil, orientation, regulations and a realistic budget band. Four to six weeks.
Plans, sections and a physical model. Two rounds of revision are built into this stage.
Every joint, finish and fitting specified. Material samples assembled at our studio for you to see and hold.
We supervise weekly and report fortnightly, with costs tracked against the approved budget line by line.
A maintenance manual written for your house, and a visit at one year and at five.
Published roughly monthly, edited by the practice.
It cracks, it moves, it breathes — and it will outlive every synthetic finish on the market.
Reading the vernacular plan as an engineering document rather than a nostalgic one.
The arithmetic of attention, and what happens to a practice that ignores it.
Notes from the Mylapore project on adding 2,000 sq ft that nobody can see.
Three days in Karaikudi with the families still making tile by hand.
An honest breakdown, including the twelve percent nobody budgets for.
Founded the practice in 1987 after eleven years with Laurie Baker's office in Trivandrum.
Leads concept design. Has drawn every house in the coastal portfolio since 2014.
Runs construction supervision and cost control. Structural engineer by training.
We reply to every enquiry personally, usually within two working days. If we are not the right practice for your project we will say so, and suggest who might be.