Residential architecture
Homes and residential developments shaped by climate, context and the patterns of daily life—from site planning and architecture to landscape and consultant coordination.
The practice
A design practice shaped across generations by rigorous inquiry and the knowledge of making.
Its work draws on the complementary experience of architects Deoyani Shinde, Dr Pramod Shinde and Harshal Shinde, who leads the practice as Chief Architect.
Since 1978
One practice, built across generations.
Deoyani Shinde founded Urban Arts in 1978, establishing a collaborative practice across homes, campuses and institutional buildings. Dr Pramod Shinde extended that work through environmental design, planning, conservation and a sustained study of Hyderabad. After returning to the city in 2001, Harshal Shinde brought architecture into closer contact with interiors, furniture, fabrication and turnkey delivery.
Across nearly five decades and hundreds of commissions, the scale has changed—from furniture and private rooms to green campuses, heritage buildings and very large urban layouts. The obligation remains the same: to find conceptual clarity, balance form with function and give each project a character particular to its people, place and making.
What we do
Architecture at every scale of use.
A client may engage one discipline or ask Urban Arts to hold the project together from the first plan to the last installation.
Interiors and turnkey delivery
Interiors treated as architecture at close range. Planning, services, lighting, materials and budgets are carried through drawings, site decisions and final installation.
Kitchens, furniture and furnishings
Ergonomics, material and making brought together in kitchens, wardrobes, cabinetry and loose furniture, combining precise factory production with bespoke hand finishing where each serves best.
Hospitality and commercial spaces
Hotels, restaurants, showrooms and workplaces developed around operations, guest experience, speed of delivery and the discipline of a defined budget.
Institutional and campus design
Complex programmes resolved at the scale of building, campus and landscape, with ecology and public use treated as part of the architectural brief.
Conservation, planning and urban design
Historic fabric and urban systems approached through measured study—condition, material, context and use—before repair, adaptation or new intervention is proposed.
Who we are
Complementary experience, shared across the studio.
Deoyani Shinde
Founder · Architect
Founded Urban Arts in 1978. Her work across residences, campuses and institutions is grounded in collaboration, clarity of planning, respect for nature and the comfort of the people who will inhabit a place.
Dr Pramod Shinde
Urban Designer · Planner · Conservation Architect
An architect, educator and author working across environmental design, planning, conservation and Hyderabad’s architectural history. He was the first architect in India to receive a PhD in Architecture, in Environmental Design from IIT Kharagpur.
Harshal Shinde, MS Arch
Chief Architect
Leads the practice across architecture, interiors, furniture and implementation, joining design development to a close understanding of materials, manufacturing and the realities of the building site.
Er Sudhir Shinde
Structural Engineer
Provides the practice’s in-house structural engineering capability, bringing structural logic into direct conversation with architectural design and construction.
Chief Architect
Architecture, interiors and the intelligence of making.
Harshal Shinde studied architecture in Hyderabad before completing his MS Arch at the University of Cincinnati. He worked with Otis Koglin Wilson Architects in Chicago and returned to join Urban Arts in 2001. Since then, his work has included hundreds of turnkey interior projects alongside architecture, adaptive reuse, sustainability, emergency architecture and rapid housing.
In 2006, Harshal and Anita Shinde began a furniture venture that grew from bespoke work into advanced manufacturing and four retail outlets. Harshal developed a method combining factory-made woodwork with bespoke hand finishing, reducing installation that traditionally took three to four months to approximately two to three weeks. That experience continues to inform the studio: machine precision is used where repetition and control matter; hand skill remains indispensable for fitting, finishing and the particularities of a site.
Alongside practice, Harshal has served as Director of the JNIAS School of Planning & Architecture at JNAFA University and as a frequent juror at schools of architecture. He was the youngest architect to present a refereed paper at an international conference of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture.
Photography, travel, writing and painting are not presented as a separate creative persona; they are other ways of looking closely, recording context and testing an idea.
Project experience
A track record spanning hundreds of commissions.
Our selected work pages provide an in-depth look at key projects. For a wider view, our experience register showcases the full breadth of our practice, clearly outlining the exact role Urban Arts undertook in each commission.
Homes and residential development · Interiors and turnkey delivery · Hospitality, retail and workplaces · Institutional and cultural buildings · Heritage conservation · Urban design and infrastructure
View project experienceRecognition
Recent awards.
Häfele Kitchen Ideas Design Challenge
Open Kitchen, Built Category · Winner, South Zone · Runner-up, All India. Awarded for the design and execution of the Kompally Residence kitchen.
IGBC Green Champion Award
Shanti Sarovar · “Pioneering Institution in Sensitising the Masses by Going Green,” recognising the 35-acre green campus design.
IIA Madhav Achwal Gold Medal
Awarded by the Indian Institute of Architects to Dr Pramod Shinde.
Design approach
Every project has a story.
Research and collaboration help us discover the most truthful way to tell it.
We look for the project’s DNA: the relationship between its physical and cultural context, the lives it must hold and the means by which it can be made. Research, environmental responsibility, traditional craft and contemporary fabrication are not separate themes; they are resources brought into one line of thought.
For us, giving form and imparting meaning are intrinsically intertwined.
Listen
Trust and openness come first. We listen for the client’s mission, core values, priorities and constraints before drawing conclusions.
Research & learn
We delve into place, precedent, climate, material and use, looking for associations that belong to this project rather than to a generic style.
Distil & decide
A fuzzy concept is tested through repeated drawings, models and conversations until the project’s defining idea becomes precise.
Create
That storyline becomes a working instrument, guiding decisions from planning and structure to light, furniture, fabrication and the final detail.