TWO APARTMENTS, ONE BOLD IDEA

Studio Sculpt cuts through a shared slab to unite two Visakhapatnam apartments into a double-height duplex, anchored by a sun-aligned pooja room and a sculptural staircase.

Photos by : Studio Sculpt

Most developers would call it heresy: cutting through the slab between two apartments to fuse them into one. Studio Sculpt did exactly that, transforming two independent units in Visakhapatnam into Casa Navira, a duplex that borrows the scale and sanctity of a standalone bungalow without ever leaving its vertical urban envelope. Casa Navira is not merely a merger of floors; it is a structural and experiential reinvention of what apartment living can be, establishing visual continuity across levels, drawing daylight deep into the plan, and anchoring circulation in a soaring central void.

A VOID AT THE CENTRE

This carved-out void is the heart of the residence. It pulls light across levels, allows sightlines to travel uninterrupted, and reshapes how the family moves through the home. A custom staircase in wood and metal rises through the space, its recessed lighting tracing each step. Alongside it, a capsule elevator wrapped in red bouclé provides an equally striking vertical counterpoint — one axis sculptural, the other pragmatic, both reinforcing the idea of ascent as experience rather than mere function

AN ENTRANCE BUILT ON CRAFT

The home's spiritual centre is its pooja room, conceived as a sanctum of material richness and choreographed light. Framed by a carved wooden gopuram, brass doors embossed with peacock motifs form a luminous threshold; opened, they reveal interiors lined with surfaces inlaid with Navratna gemstones and traced with silver accents, introducing subtle points of colour and reflection. A precise solar study aligned an aperture with the balcony behind it, so that at sunrise, the first rays fall directly on the deity — brass warming, silver shimmering, gemstones flickering, the room quite literally waking with the sun. Structure, craft and cosmos align in that single choreographed moment.

A VERTICAL URBAN ENVELOPE, REIMAGINED

Visakhapatnam's apartment stock rarely allows for this kind of experimentation, which makes Casa Navira's central conceit more striking still. Rather than treating the two original units as fixed constraints, Studio Sculpt read them as raw material — slabs, walls and services all open to renegotiation once the brief called for a home that could hold a joint family across generations. The double-height void that resulted doesn't just solve a spatial problem; it gives the home a vertical spine that every other decision, from the staircase to the pooja room's solar alignment, is calibrated against.

RESTRAINT EVERYWHERE ELSE

Beyond these two set pieces, Casa Navira turns disciplined. Neoclassical proportions, quiet architraves and mouldings, and a controlled material palette let volume and light do the talking, while services — a dumbwaiter, laundry chute, motion-sensor lighting — recede into the background, present but unobtrusive. This restraint is deliberate rather than default: with two showpiece moments already commanding attention, the architects chose to let the remaining rooms recede rather than compete, reserving drama for the spaces that had earned it. A floral mosaic and exotic marble define the powder room, while a private study upstairs is tucked behind a brass pocket door. Three bedrooms round out the upper level in versatile tonalities — one in modern femininity, one with subtle neoclassical detail, one anchored by a bold brass backdrop — each distinct without disrupting the home's overall restraint.

Casa Navira doesn't reinvent the apartment; it simply refuses to accept its limits. One decisive structural move, paired with disciplined detailing throughout, proves enough to turn density into depth — light carefully choreographed, movement flowing with intent, every system operating quietly in the background.