An Indian mud house - and more, on Sketch Design Studio's natural material wonders

If her weekend home is any indication, it’s safe to assume that Rajasthan-based interior designer Shipra Singhania likes to put her money where her mouth is. In 2023, the founder and principal of Sketch Design Studio, a natural building and interior design practice she established in 2014, used kitchen ingredients to build her family’s pied-à-terre on a four-acre permaculture farm in Alwar, Rajasthan.

Meet Sketch Design Studio, Alwar, Rajasthan

She conjured the structure with nothing more than mud, lime, and edibles such as neem, jaggery, and fenugreek seeds. Though the project marked Singhania’s debut as an architect, creating it was second nature for the designer, who has long used natural materials and time-honoured vernacular techniques to craft beautifully modern homes, offices, and retail and hospitality spaces that tread lightly on the environment.

In Singhania’s eyes, anything human-made should add value to the earth. ‘It's easy to only set your sights on the end result, but what about the people, land, and materials that are poured into the project along the way? As designers, the onus is on us to be more sensitive to this part of the journey,’ says the designer, who holds a BA in interior and spatial design from Chelsea College of Arts, London, and a diploma in interior design from Rachana Sansad, Mumbai. Singhania views each project as a child of the earth, borrowing materials and labour from the immediate environment to honour both people and place, equally.

She manifested this ethos in 2020 when she took up the design reins for a round house in Rajasthan, built using natural materials including mud, lime, bamboo, stone, jaggery and starch—with no steel or concrete. Then, in 2022, she evolved her palette to achieve a Kerala-inspired holiday home in India’s Aravali valley, employing native Rajasthani craftsmanship, rammed earth walls, traditional lime plaster techniques, and traditional furniture. The following year, she conceived a stone dwelling near Delhi, using vernacular architecture and mud paint composed of clay and starch, a cost-effective local technique.

Ask her whether her earth-friendly approach impacts her aesthetic lexicon, and Singhania doesn't dither. ‘Our interior design philosophy is rooted in minimalism, focusing on clean lines and simplicity. We believe that by keeping designs simple, we can highlight the true beauty of each space,’ says the Lucknow native. She may be 150 interior design projects and 10 natural building projects deep, but she is nowhere near done.

designatsketch.in