Plate 01
Homes, from the plot up
New residences designed around sun paths, monsoon winds and how your family actually moves through a day — from first sketch to the day you get the keys.
Scope: Full design + siteTyp. 14–22 months
Drawn for lightbuilt for life.
Mechanical design engineer with seven years in product development for off-highway and agricultural equipment. Leads sheet-metal and casting designs from concept to production release, including FEA checks, DFMEA and supplier PPAP support.
42■Projects built
09yrIn practice
03▲On site now
Selected works
Sheet A-01 · Index of drawingsTwelve of forty-two. Each project is photographed only after the client has lived or worked in it for a year — buildings should be judged inhabited.
W-42
Courtyard House
Residence · 6,400 ft²Alibaug · Built 2025
W-39Mill House Studios
Adaptive reuse · 18,000 ft²Panjim · Built 2024
W-35Verandah Clinic
Healthcare · 3,100 ft²Mapusa · Built 2023
W-31House Between Trees
Residence · 2,800 ft²Assagao · Built 2023
W-27Saltpan Office
Workplace · 9,600 ft²Ribandar · Built 2022
W-22Two-Courtyard School
Institutional · 24,000 ft²Ponda · Built 2021
Full portfolio with drawings & site photographs shared on request → write to the studio
What the studio does
Sheet A-02 · Scope of servicesPlate 02
Old buildings, new lives
Adaptive reuse and restoration — Portuguese houses, mills, warehouses. Keeping the bones and the memory, replacing everything that leaks, sags or bakes.
Scope: Survey → handoverTyp. 10–18 months
Plate 03
Workplaces that work
Offices, clinics and studios for teams under a hundred — daylight over downlights, cross-ventilation over glass boxes, and acoustics people can think in.
Scope: Design + interiorsTyp. 6–12 months
The studio
Sheet A-03 · General notesA building should know where it stands — its sun, its rain, its street — before it worries about how it photographs.
Mechanical design engineer with seven years in product development for off-highway and agricultural equipment. Leads sheet-metal and casting designs from concept to production release, including FEA checks, DFMEA and supplier PPAP support.
Nisha ChauhanAr. Nisha Chauhan · B.Arch, Reg. no. 000000
NC
Portrait — replace with a photograph at the drawing board or on site
2025
NDTV Design Award — Residence of the YearCourtyard House, Alibaug
2024
AD India — published, Mill House StudiosAdaptive reuse feature
2022
IIA Goa Chapter — Young Architect Award
From plot to keys
Sheet A-04 · Sequence of workListen & measure
Site visit, survey, soil and sun study — and a long conversation about how you live, not what you've pinned.
2–3 weeksConcept
Two directions, presented as models and plans you can read. We pick one, together, for reasons we can both say out loud.
4–6 weeksDesign development
Materials, structure, services, budget reality-check. The design is frozen before the first brick — changes on paper are cheap.
8–10 weeksDrawings & permits
Working drawings a contractor can't misread, and the approvals file handled end to end.
6–8 weeksOn site
Fortnightly site visits, a shared photo log, and a snag list we clear before you move in — not after.
Build durationCurriculum vitae
Sheet A-05 · RecordPractice
4 years · current
Senior Design Engineer
Off-highway equipment manufacturer
Led design of a new operator cabin frame, coordinating with styling, manufacturing and supplier teams through prototype and pilot builds.
3 years
Design Engineer
Agricultural machinery manufacturer
Designed sheet-metal guards and cast housings for tractor implements using Creo and in-house design standards.
Education
M.Tech. Design Engineering
State government engineering college
Thesis on fatigue life of welded brackets
B.E. Mechanical Engineering
State university affiliated engineering college
Recognition & publication
NDTV Design & Architecture Award Residence of the Year — Courtyard House2025
Architectural Digest India Mill House Studios, feature2024
FOAID Design Excellence — shortlist Two-Courtyard School2022
IIA Goa — Young Architect Award 2022
Domus India Verandah Clinic, published2023
Guest critic, B.Arch juries Goa College of Architecture2021 —
Registrations
Council of Architecture, India Reg. no. 0000002017
Indian Institute of Architects, Assoc. 2018
Clients, a year in
Sheet A-06 · Post-occupancyWe asked for four bedrooms. He asked why. The answer — grandparents visit twice a year — became a guest wing that closes off entirely. We live in the whole house now, not a quarter of it.
Homeowners, Courtyard HouseAlibaug · moved in 2025
The mill was going to be demolished. Nisha walked in, put his hand on a column, and said "this is the best material on site." Two years later our studio works inside those columns.
Founder, Mill House StudiosPanjim · occupied 2024
Site notes
Sheet A-07 · Journal05.2026Read →02.2026Read →11.2025Read →
Why your house doesn't need air-conditioning in every room
What a 4-foot roof overhang, a shaded west wall and one honest courtyard actually do to indoor temperature — with numbers from our own projects.
The real cost of a Goa restoration, itemised
Everyone asks. Here is an anonymised budget of a 1920s house restoration — what the laterite cost, what the surprises cost, what we'd do differently.
How to brief an architect (without a Pinterest board)
Twelve questions that tell me more about your future home than a hundred saved images.
Build something
worth keeping.
The studio takes four commissions a year. Tell me about your plot, your building or your idea — I reply personally, usually within two days, and the first conversation costs nothing.
StudioHouse No. 214, Near St. Anthony Chapel
Assagao, Goa 403 507Visits by appointment — Tue & Thu
Assagao, Goa 403 507Visits by appointment — Tue & Thu
Phone+00 00000 00000Mon–Sat · 10:00–18:00
Emailyou@example.com
WhatsAppMessage the studio
ProjectPersonal CV — Ar. Nisha Chauhan
SheetA-08 · Title block
Scale1 : 1 · NTS
Revision© 2026 · Rev. C
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