Workspace · Karad · 2026

An office that keeps its books in the light

Sapna led the interior design and site inputs on this office, working with Metru Studio, the project architects.

An office in Karad, made of a reception, a few cabins and the passage between them. What holds it together is one habit, repeated in every room: the walls you face are wood grain, and set into the wood, behind glass and lit from inside, are the books.

The reception: a pale desk with two leather chairs, a dark panelled double door, zebra blinds on two windows and a cove of warm light around the ceiling, with a lit glass display case set into a wood-grain wall on the left.
Type
Workspace
Where
Karad
Year
2026
Services
Space planning

The brief

A working office in Karad: a reception, cabins, a passage and a small balcony. Katha led the interior design and gave the site its inputs, working alongside the project architects.

What we did

Two finishes do most of the work. The walls a visitor faces are wood grain, in full-height panels that hide their own doors: on the reception wall a single handle is the only sign there is a door at all. The walls around them are pale and plain, so the light from the windows, filtered through zebra blinds, has something to land on.

Set into the wood are glass-fronted cases, lit from inside: a display case in the reception, a bookcase at the end of the passage that turns the corner, and another in the cabin with the long table. The light is on the books, not across the ceiling.

The tables sit on turned legs, and the carved double door, with elephants, kalash and cows in its panels, is the one place the office is ornamented outright.

The result

The photographs were taken on the finished site in March 2026. What is in them is what was built.

The rooms

A full-height wood-grain wall with a lit glass display case set into it and a flush door that shows only its handle; a lit bookcase in the passage to the left, the double door to the right.
The reception wall
A lit glass display case set into a wood-grain wall, a flush door beside it and a dark panelled double door in the corner.
The display case, beside the double door
A short passage between wood-grain doors, ending in a glass-fronted bookcase lit from inside, with a plant in a white pot beside it.
The passage
A cabin with a long wooden table and brown leather chairs, a window with zebra blinds at the far end and a palm in a white fluted pot catching the sun.
The long table, towards the window
Looking down the length of the same table to a glass-fronted bookcase set into a wood-grain wall.
The same room, towards its books
An L-shaped desk and three leather chairs in a corner cabin, zebra blinds on both windows and a small shelf with a plant between them.
A cabin with two windows

Around the office

A double door in dark wood, each leaf carved in five panels with elephants, kalash and cows, with brass pull handles and a brass latch.
The carved door
A glass-fronted bookcase that turns a corner, lit along its uprights and full of books, set into wood-grain panelling.
The bookcase, turning the corner
The corner of a long table, a thick wooden top on turned, tapering legs.
A turned table leg
A palm in a white fluted pot on slim legs, in sunlight from a window with zebra blinds, framed by the edge of a door.
A palm by the window
A narrow balcony behind white vertical bars, with a slatted wooden ceiling, artificial grass, a glass-topped table and two woven chairs.
The balcony
The L-shaped desk from nearer, a ceiling fan above and a table on turned legs running out from it.
The two-window cabin, from its corner

The other projects

Residence · Kolhapur · 2026A house that opens upward Residence · Chennai · 2023A shrine, and the house around it

Start a project

Tell us about the space and what it needs to become. We work remotely across India, and the first conversation costs nothing.

Start a projectBack to the work