A Pride Month story about architecture, identity, and building a life together — unapologetically. Light arrives first. It falls through unfinished volumes, pools across bare concrete, and catches the dust of a minimalist house not yet made. When architect Munish Chauhan and his partner, Dr. Gaurav, first walked through their under-construction duplex penthouse in Goa, what they saw wasn’t incompleteness — it was possibility.
Bowerbird Lab
For many same-sex couples in India, the act of creating a home together still carries invisible weight: subtle hesitation, quiet judgment, the persistent feeling of needing to justify one’s existence. Munish and Dr. Gaurav chose a different response. They designed their way through it.
Conceived by Munish, founder of the Goa-based practice Bowerbird Lab, the minimalist house unfolds across two levels that gently dissolve the boundary between living and working. The lower floor is private residence — warm, emotionally grounded, anchored in an earthy palette of natural finishes, soft neutrals, and layered light that shifts with the day.
There is no decorative excess here. The minimalist house speaks in atmosphere: open layouts that encourage movement, pockets of light and shadow that invite stillness, every material chosen for feeling as much as form.
Above, the upper level becomes studio — where sketches, material explorations, and creative collaborations unfold against the rhythm of daily domestic life. Rather than separating these worlds, Munish merged them deliberately.
The staircase between floors is less a transition than a conversation between intimacy and openness, work and rest, the personal and the professional. The architecture breathes with Goa.
Large openings draw in natural ventilation and tropical light; the muted palette recedes to let proportion and materiality speak. The result is a home that feels contemporary yet deeply inhabited — sophisticated without the appearance of effort.
Beyond the apartment, Munish and Dr. Gaurav share their visual world through Instagram, where architecture, travel, and everyday moments intersect with the same quiet sensibility found in the penthouse — understated, intimate, rooted in storytelling rather than performance.
In the end, this penthouse is not simply a design project. It is a portrait of modern domesticity in India — built not through grand gestures, but through softness, honesty, and the quiet courage of making space for oneself in the world.
For Munish and Dr. Gaurav, this is where they live, where they work, and where they built a life together — thoughtfully, openly, and entirely on their own terms.
Fact File
Designed by: Bowerbird Lab
Project Type: Residential Interior Design
Project Name: Designing Belonging
Location: Goa, India
Year Built: 2024
Duration of the Project: Approx. 10–12 Months
Plot Area: 5000 Sq.ft
Built-up Area: 2000 Sqft
Principal Architect: Ar. Munish Chauhan
Team Design Credit: Bowerbird Lab Team
Photograph Courtesy: Dhruv
Products / Materials / Vendors Finishes: Plaster tecture, textured paint finishes, paint, / Wallcovering / Cladding: Textured wall finishes, wall moulding , paints, wallpaper / Construction Materials: RCC structure, concrete blockwork / Lighting: Warm ambient architectural lighting / Doors and Partitions: duco finished flush doors, glass partitions / Sanitaryware: jaquar / Facade Systems: Minimal contemporary glazing systems / Windows: Powder-coated UPVC sliding systems / Furniture: Custom-designed furniture by Bowerbird Lab / Flooring: Large-format vitrified tiles, wooden flooring accents / Kitchen: Quartz countertop with custom modular kitchen / Paint: Asian Paints / Artefacts: Curated contemporary décor pieces Wallpaper: Minimal textured wallpaper accents / Hardware: Hafele / Hettich (To confirm)
Firm’s Website Link: Bowerbird Lab
Instagram Link: Bowerbird Lab
Facebook Link: Bowerbird Lab
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