CREATURES OF COMFORT

Architect and EDIDA winner Puran Kumar's home blends his own modernist sensibility with a deep fondness for the natural world

- AVANTIKA SHANKAR

Architect Puran Kumar's Mumbai home is fitted with all the aspirational luxuries of modern living, but nothing lights his face up as much as the bat that lives in the tree outside his bedroom window. The EDIDA winner is clearly very fond of the Prabhakar Kolte artwork that he's placed at the entrance, and also appears graciously pleased with the way an assortment of Italian branded furniture, sourced at the behest of his team at Studio PKA, has come together in the living room.

It is obvious he's put a lot of thought into his design for his bespoke bar unit, which is a beer barrel, and when he puts on an audiovisual installation by Sameer Kulavoor, it is evident that familiarity has not dulled his admiration for the work. And yet, when he catches a glimpse of the bat perched outside his bedroom window, he can't help but take a moment to quietly enjoy it. "This house is a window to nature," he tells me. "Everybody vies for our attention: there are silverbills and parakeets, kingfishers, cuckoos, sparrows, squirrels on the trees. In a city like Mumbai, it is something to be relished."