Master planning · India

Master planning in India. We make built environments better.

A master plan is a promise about how a place will behave for the next fifty years, and most of that behaviour is decided in the first six months of drawing. We create and curate frameworks that imprint character on a place rather than impose a style on it.

A master plan sets the terms for everything built after it, the streets, the skyline, the value, and the way a community works long after handover. You are committing land, capital, and reputation to a framework that has to hold for a generation. We create and curate that framework so it imprints a clear character and bestows legibility on the whole development, rather than leaving a grid to be filled in later. Work with us and you get a plan that guides growth with intent and lifts the worth of everything inside it.

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What we do

Master planning services we deliver in India

Master planning is where the value of a development is won or lost, and it rewards a studio that understands both the land and the buildings that will rise on it. As an urban design in India that designs those buildings as well as the frameworks around them, we plan land knowing how it will actually be built.

Township and new community planning

We create and curate the framework for new settlements.

Setting the structure that lets a place develop character over decades rather than arriving fully formed and ageing badly.

Densification and infill planning

We plan additional capacity into places that are already working.

Growth strengthens the existing fabric instead of overwhelming what made it valuable.

Urban design in India →

Phasing and delivery strategy

We sequence development so early parcels fund and de-risk later ones.

The first residents are not living on a construction site for a decade.

Water and drainage-led planning

We plan around where water actually goes in a monsoon.

Topography and open space used as infrastructure, rather than treating flooding as a problem for the engineers to solve later.

Public realm structure

We set the streets, parks and connective space first.

These are the elements a plan cannot retrofit, and the ones residents judge it by.

Mixed-use and commercial integration

We plan where work, retail and amenity sit, so a place functions on a weekday rather than only as a dormitory.

Our work

Our master planning work

Our master planning work spans township, waterfront and mixed-use development at the scale most of our planning briefs sit at. Our first Indian commission was in Mumbai and a further commission in Hyderabad is on the boards and remains confidential, so the work below is from the Gulf and is named with its real location. The transferable part is the method. Our urban design in India page covers the scale below this one.

Durrat Al Bahrain, Bahrain

A master-planned resort destination of connected islands off Bahrain's southern coast, one of our founding director's landmark frameworks.

Residential, hospitality, and marina uses resolved into a single legible structure
Island and waterfront urbanism planned at destination scale
A long-horizon framework designed to hold its character across phased delivery

CapitaLand Bahrain Bay, Manama

A large-scale mixed-use development in Bahrain's premier waterfront district, planned as a coherent whole before the individual buildings.

Retail podium, office towers, residential, and public realm within one master plan
Waterfront frontage and movement network curated for a premium urban context
Design management and lead consultancy across the development

East Point Riffa, Bahrain

A mixed-use master plan combining retail, F&B, workspace, and public realm within a unified destination in Riffa.

Programme and public realm planned for footfall and dwell-time performance
Contextual framework for a suburban development in a Gulf climate
Full scope delivered from master plan through to building design

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Place

Master planning for India: monsoon, density and phasing

Indian geography shapes almost every master plan we take on. Monsoon intensity, land assembly and the pace of urbanisation call for frameworks that treat water as a structuring element and the climate as a design driver.

We plan from inside a planned township	Our studio is in Mani Casadona, New Town, itself a Smart Cities Mission development administered by NKDA, so drainage, density, public realm and climate resilience are questions we watch being tested outside the window
Monsoon drainage is a planning decision, not an engineering one	By the time a plan reaches the drainage consultant, topography, levels and open space are usually fixed. We set them with water in mind from the first sketch, which is the only stage at which it is cheap
Frameworks that survive a change of programme	Land assembly slips, funding moves, anchors withdraw. We plan so the structure holds when the programme changes, because on Indian schemes at this scale it always does
Public realm and connectivity	Designed so a district is legible and walkable

The connective tissue, the streets and public space, is where a plan comes to life, which is why our urban design in India runs alongside every master plan we create.

Sustainability

Sustainability certifications

We align with international sustainability standards on every project, whether or not formal certification is required by the client brief.

GRIHA · India's national green building rating, developed with TERI and endorsed by the Government of India, applicable to fit-out as well as base build.

IGBC · Indian Green Building Council ratings, the certification most widely specified by Indian developers and occupiers. We are members of the Council.

WELL · building standard focused on occupant health through air quality, lighting, acoustics, and materials.

Approach

Regenerative place-shaping

We plan to leave a place better than we found it, integrating ecology, public realm, and mixed-use community so the three improve together rather than competing. That means a plan judged on social, environmental, and economic value at once.

This is where master planning meets India's national programmes. The Smart Cities Mission, AMRUT and PM Gati Shakti translate directly into place: developments that use resources well, attract investment and talent, and give every resident a fair share of quality public space. New Town, where our India studio sits, is itself a Smart Cities Mission development under NKDA, and it rewards frameworks built for the long horizon.

Proof

Why clients trust us

30 years of GCC and international experience
A suite of projects delivered across Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, India, and beyond
MIPIM Future Projects Award, Office category
RIBA-chartered practice

Process

How we work

We follow a clear, collaborative process from the first conversation right up to ribbon cutting. No stage is delegated; the same team members stay on your project throughout.

Discovery. We start by listening carefully. A meeting or series of meetings to understand your brief, your constraints, and what success looks like for you and the people your project will serve.

Concept and design. We develop design concepts in close collaboration with you, working through agreed stages from Concept Design through to Detailed Design and Construction Documentation. You sign off at the conclusion of each stage.

Delivery. We act as lead consultant, coordinating engineering inputs and specialist consultants on your behalf, managing procurement, and guiding the tender process and contractor selection.

Construction and handover. We stay on your project throughout the build, monitoring quality and design integrity, managing commissioning and handover, and supporting you through the Defects Liability Period.

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Why nicholas.design

Why nicholas.design for your project

Global standards, delivered from Kolkata.

RIBA-chartered design excellence from a studio in New Town that works to your calendar, your approvals, and your site conditions, not to a brief interpreted from another time zone.

The principal you meet is the principal on your project.

No hand-off after the pitch. Nicholas Bonaventure and the senior team stay involved from the first brief to the final handover.

Architecture that belongs to its place.

We design for the monsoon, for humidity, and for the way Indian households actually live, embedded from concept stage rather than corrected later.

nicholas.design studio at the Bahrain World Trade Center, Manama

Home market

A studio in Kolkata

Our India studio is in Mani Casadona, New Town, in the North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal. New Town is itself a planned township and a Smart Cities Mission development under NKDA, which means the questions our neighbours are working through, density, drainage, public realm, climate resilience, are the same questions we bring to your project.

Working from here changes what we can offer. We read the site ourselves, we sit in the approvals meetings, and we are on your calendar rather than three time zones away. Design leads every commission we take on, and that principle does not soften because a project is far from where the studio was founded.

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FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between master planning and urban design?

Scale and grain. Master planning sets the structure of a whole settlement or district: land use, density, movement, infrastructure and phasing. Urban design works at street and block level, shaping how that structure is actually experienced. We do both.

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Do you work on Smart Cities Mission projects?

Yes, and our studio sits inside one. New Town is a Smart Cities Mission development under NKDA. We are familiar with how these schemes are structured, funded and approved, and with the difference between what the policy framework asks for and what a place needs to actually work.

How do you plan for the monsoon?

By treating water as the first structuring element rather than a service. In practice that means:

Topography and levels set so water moves where you want it to
Open space doing drainage work rather than sitting decoratively alongside it
Density kept off the land that needs to flood
The drainage strategy tested against the worst week, not the annual average

Set at the first sketch, this costs nothing. Retrofitted after the levels are fixed, it costs a great deal.

Who else do you work with on a master plan?

We act as lead consultant and coordinate the specialist team. That usually includes:

Civil and infrastructure engineers
Transport planners
Landscape architects and environmental consultants
Economic and market advisors on larger schemes. We manage that team on your behalf rather than asking you to

How long does a master plan take?

It depends on scale and on the approvals route, and the approvals are usually the longer half. We set out a realistic programme at the outset, including the statutory stages, and we are direct about which decisions will hold everything else up if they are left open.

The scale of the site and the number of parcels in the framework
The approvals route, which varies by state and by authority
Which decisions are still open, since these hold everything else up

Can you take a master plan through to the buildings?

Yes.

We work from master plan through to detailed building design, and on many schemes that continuity is the point. It means the buildings actually deliver what the plan promised, which is where master plans most often fail. See our commercial architecture in India page for how that continues at building scale.

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