A gentle retrofit in Mumbai House of Curves is a quiet reimagining of a 25-year-old row house located in one of Mumbai’s most densely packed neighbourhoods. Like many homes of its time, architects shaped it using rigid dimensions, strict geometry, and a lifestyle adjusted to tight spatial limits. Over the years, the family had adapted to these constraints without questioning them. Even though the row house had the rare luxury of an open verandah, it slowly lost its purpose and became a storage spillover rather than a place to pause. The intent of the redesign was not to enlarge the house or replace its structure, but to soften its edges physically and emotionally and reconnect it with light, air, and the outdoors. The challenge was to work within a small footprint and low ceilings, keeping the structure intact, while allowing the row house to feel open, calm, and breathable again.
A 25-Year-Old Row House Finds Its Way Out Of The Constraints | Dezignlink Studio
When the clients first approached us, their brief was simple and practical. After living in the row house for over 25 years, they wanted to refurbish the living room, kitchen, and a common bathroom, nothing more. The client had a limited budget, and builders had already partially constructed the site. Our first reaction, quite honestly, was confusion. The space felt dark, fragmented, and tired. But where others might have seen decay, we saw possibility.
The verandah of the row house, in particular, caught our attention. It wasn’t a verandah in spirit anymore. Cardboard boxes, unused furniture, shut windows, and a heavy door had cut off light and any relationship with the outside. Yet in this forgotten corner, a single neem tree stood quietly, and many people saw it as a problem rather than an asset. The tree’s roots had lifted tiles and disturbed the flooring. Neighbours insisted that someone should remove it. No other row house on the street had a tree within its verandah, and anything unconventional often attracts polite disapproval. Even the clients were ready to let it go. We chose to keep it. That decision became the first quiet shift in the story of this house.
A closer look revealed that the tree’s roots weren’t aggressive; they were searching. The tightly packed ground around it prevented water from percolating properly, and the roots spread outward in search of moisture. Instead of cutting the tree, we opened up the corner around it, giving it space to breathe. The team carefully handled the roots that needed trimming and created a softscape zone around the tree, allowing water to reach deep into the ground. Over time, the tree responded slowly and quietly with new life. It even gained a few “friends” in the form of surrounding plants.
The builders completely redid the verandah flooring using timeless local materials—Kota stone and Kadappa stone—laid in a random yet synchronised pattern. The layout follows movement rather than symmetry, guiding one naturally towards the entrance of the house. With the smoothness of pebbles, creating a tactile contrast beneath the feet. Planters and softscape emerge from the tree’s corner, framing it as the nurturing anchor of the space.The designers engraved steel inlays in the shape of falling flowers into the flooring, echoing the petals shed by the tree above. Like a Frozen time. Importantly, the designers made the flooring forgiving. If the tree ever pushes through again, workers can remove and reset individual tiles without disturbing the overall design. The same random logic extends to the wall tiles, with darker tones at the bottom for ease of maintenance and a quiet acknowledgement of Mumbai’s dust-filled reality.
The designers concealed lighting within the verandah façade using small brass boxes, casting a warm, indirect glow at night. The effect is subtle like fireflies lighting up the garden. The entire space was intended to give the verandah its soul back a place to pause, to return to, and to simply be present. Interestingly, neighbours who once questioned the tree returned this time with curiosity. After seeing the space come together, some even wished they had a tree in their own verandah. They realised the issue was never the tree. It was perspective.
Even with all the detailing in the garden, one’s attention inevitably drifts to the curved baithak window overlooking it. Clad in black granite sourced from Rajasthan, the bay window gently projects outward, becoming both furniture and architecture. It’s a place to sit alone or share a morning coffee. The masons loved building it not because it was complex, but because it made sense to the body.
Across from it sits its quiet companion: a slanted dining window, finished in the same material but expressed differently. Together, these two windows speak to each other similar, yet distinct sharing light, views, and material language. Entry into the house happens through the original teakwood door, refurbished and reused. It has been part of the home since the beginning, and it felt right to let it continue its journey.
The new windows echo the old jali pattern of the door, reinterpreted in a modern way and adapted for safety. Brass, bamboo, and floral handles reflect the landscape as one steps inside. Since the house receives light from only one façade, the front elevation was opened up as much as possible, allowing daylight to enter deeply and letting the interiors breathe.
As one enters from the verandah into the dining area of the row house, a bold curved arch gently divides the dining and living spaces, framing arched openings towards the kitchen and main entrance. Panda black stone appears subtly on the dining table and TV unit helping distinguish formal and informal zones without breaking visual continuity. Earlier, the ground floor hosted too many functions competing for attention: the entrance, powder room, kitchen, dining, living area, TV unit, baithak seating, and verandah access.
Everything existed, but nothing breathed. The redesign untangled this overlap. For 25 years, the family never ate near a window. Meals happened in front of a screen. Today, the dining area sits in natural light, connected to the outdoors. It’s used daily not because they were told to, but because it feels right. The dining ceiling is recessed and finished in wood veneer, softly contrasting with the white living space. Curves appear throughout not as decoration, but as transition.
Furniture edges, walls, seating, and corners soften the existing structure. Light becomes an architectural element. A wooden screen along the staircase filters sunlight, casting subtle patterns as one moves through the space. Behind the sofa, an undulating wall reflects light differently throughout the day a quiet artwork shaped entirely by time and brightness. Nothing here shouts. Everything reveals itself slowly.
The kitchen sits across a wide opening from the living area visible, accessible, and seamlessly part of the home. Instead of treating it as a leftover space, it was stripped back to its essentials. A single window anchors the space. To soften its strict lines, curves from the living area continue into the stone backsplash, turning it into a subtle sculptural element. Lower cabinets in warm walnut ground the kitchen, while overhead shutters in a muted sage tone bring calm. The kitchen doesn’t try to stand out. It blends in functional, warm, and quietly confident. It feels less like a workspace and more like an extension of everyday life.
As the project evolved, the scope naturally extended upstairs to include the master bedroom and mandir. Upstairs, the home shifts into a softer, more personal rhythm. The master bedroom originally opened to a heavy wall of storage functional, but overwhelming. Like many clients, the instinct was to maximise storage wherever possible (a logic we noticed… and chose not to question further).
The result was a space that felt more full than free. To change that experience, the wardrobe facing the entry was redesigned in glass, allowing lightness and visual relief. The remaining storage was wrapped in fabric cladding, adding texture without weight.
The difference is subtle but immediate the room now feels open rather than boxed in. Another constraint was the existing flooring, which had to remain even as the room expanded to include a dresser and balcony.
Instead of hiding this limitation, it was embraced using a Kintsugi-inspired approach. Thin green marble lines were woven into the floor, dissolving old joints and creating continuity. These lines guided everything wardrobe details, furniture edges, and the custom bed profile.
The bed was designed not just as a visual gesture, but as a functional one: soft curved “wings” provide privacy, ensuring the first view upon entering isn’t the person sleeping.
What defines House of Curves isn’t the finishes or the styling. It’s the shift in behaviour. A verandah once used for storage is now where mornings begin. A dining table ignored for decades has become the centre of daily life. A bedroom that once felt heavy now breathes. This project wasn’t about replacing everything. It was about listening to the structure, to habits, to what deserved to stay. Retrofitting demands patience. Sometimes the most meaningful design decisions aren’t additions, but acknowledgements. “No loud colours, no excess art, no decorative noise.” The architecture stands on its own. “House of Curves is named not for its form alone but for its intent—gentle, adaptive, and rooted in memory.” It proves something simple: design succeeds not when everything looks new, but when everything finally feels like it belongs. “A gem is not always discovered—sometimes, it is created.”
Fact File
Designed by: Dezignlink Studio
Project Type: Residential Architecture (Retrofitting)
Project Name: House of Curves
Location: Mumbai
Year Built: 2026
Duration of the project: 6 Months
Project Size: 2500 Sq.ft
Principal Architects: Ar. Sakshi Sawant & Ar. Smit Lakkad
Photograph Courtesy: Harsheen Mengar
Products / Materials / Vendors: Paint finishing – Oikos Paint, Asian paints / Kitchen Hardware fittings – Blum / Sanitary fittings – Jaquar / Ceiling Lighting fittings – Lafit light fittings / Dining Hanging light – Navkar lights / Marble/Stone finishing – Samyak Marble / Flooring tiles- La cera. / Furnishing – Pravin Kumar and co
Firm’s Instagram Link: Dezignlink Studio
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