Kotwara Dreams

In their serene studio-residence in Delhi-NCR, Muzaffar and Meera Ali weave architecture, couture, culture, nature and storytelling under one roof.

- Chirag Mohanty Samal.

Tucked discreetly off the Gurugram-Faridabad highway, down a tree-lined street aptly named Rumi Lane, stands the House of Kotwara, a private estate spanning 2.75 acres that feels worlds away from its urban context. Designed and inhabited by filmmaker and artist Muzaffar Ali and his wife, Meera Ali, an architect, designer and author, the home is less a statement and more a meditative gesture: a place where architecture, craft, art and memory flow into one another with deliberate ease.

The driveway stops short of the front door. A walking path, flanked by trees, leads visitors slowly toward the home. “You don’t see the house until you’re standing in front of it,” she adds. “It’s not about grand entrances; it’s about how a space reveals itself.”

A Sense of Belonging

The location was love at first sight, shares Meera. “When we first saw this land, it felt untouched, flanked by a 200-acre forest on one side and a sleepy village on the other,” she recalls. “There were gentle hillocks and old palm trees. We knew immediately it was the right place to build.”

Rather than flattening or reshaping the terrain, the couple preserved its natural contours. “We landscaped around the hillocks, kept the natural vegetation, and even used the boulders we excavated to enhance a feeling of wilderness,” says Meera. “It’s a bit like the follies in English gardens.”

Flowering trees like laburnum, jacaranda, and magnolia were chosen to bloom across different seasons, so the colours shift throughout the year. “We wanted time itself to be visible here,” adds Muzaffar.

Design in Motion