Designing for sixty people, three times a year
The households we work for in Mulund host — festivals, extended family, community occasions — and a plan that ignores it produces a beautiful flat that is unusable on the days that matter most. The moves that work are spatial rather than expensive. Every rupee figure on this page comes from Mulund apartments we have finished and invoiced, held at October 2026.
- A formal zone that can be opened into the informal one. Sliding or pivoting panels between the living room and the family room, closed for daily life and opened for an occasion. It is far better than one enormous room that feels empty on a Tuesday.
- Seating that multiplies. Window seats with storage under them, benches at the dining table rather than only chairs, and ottomans that move. Sixty people do not all sit, but forty of them expect to.
- A kitchen that can be worked by four. Two prep zones, a second sink, and a serving route to the dining area that does not cross the seated guests. On festival days the kitchen is staffed by family members, not by one cook.
- Circulation that survives a crowd. 1,200 mm minimum through the main route, doors that do not swing into it, and nothing fragile on a console in the passage.
- Somewhere for footwear. Sixty pairs at the entrance is a real problem with a simple answer: a bench with deep pull-out storage and an overflow run in the utility, planned in rather than improvised with a rack on the landing.
Worked example: 2,200 sq ft four-bedroom, high floor, LBS Marg
A thirty-fourth floor apartment with hill and creek views. Four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a formal living room, a family room that opens into it, a pooja room and a kitchen with a separate utility. Bare shell from the developer.
| Scope | ₹ lakh | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Design and consultants | 4.38 | Full drawing set; lighting scheme; furniture and gathering layouts |
| Civil, waterproofing and plumbing | 6.57 | All wet areas tanked; pooja room ventilation formed |
| Electrical, lighting and AV | 8.76 | Scene control including a gathering scene; structured cabling |
| HVAC | 6.33 | Zoned separately for the glazed elevation; boosted capacity in reception rooms |
| Joinery and bespoke furniture | 28.60 | Wardrobes, media wall, dining storage, entrance bench with deep footwear storage |
| Stone and surfaces | 9.25 | Honed stone in reception rooms; the family room floor continuous with the living room |
| Pooja room — stone, joinery and lighting | 4.14 | Stone base, ventilated, dedicated lighting circuit, real storage |
| Ceilings and decorative lighting | 8.28 | Cove and profile detail; feature fitting over dining |
| Wall finishes | 3.41 | Textured plaster in the living room; washable finishes in circulation |
| Four bathrooms | 7.55 | Concealed cisterns, thermostatic mixers, stone counters |
| Soft furnishing and loose furniture | 5.84 | Sliding panels between zones; multiplying seating; rugs |
| Project management and contingency | 0.61 | Held against shell conditions |
| Total, ex-GST | 93.72 | ₹4,260 per sq ft carpet |
Add 18% GST. The sliding panels between the living and family rooms are part of the soft furnishing and joinery lines and are the single item that makes the plan work at both scales.
Six people on a Tuesday, sixty at Diwali
The pooja room, done as a room
At this level in Mulund the pooja space is not a niche and should not be treated as one. What it actually needs: its own ventilation, either a window or a mechanical extract on a timer, because camphor and oil lamps produce residue that will otherwise coat the ceiling and the adjoining wall; a stone or solid-surface base that can be washed rather than a laminate one that will not survive; storage designed for what is genuinely kept — the vessels, the cloths, the seasonal items — rather than a symbolic shelf; a dedicated lighting circuit with a warm source and no downlight directly overhead, which flattens everything; and a floor finish continuous with the adjoining room so the space reads as part of the home rather than as a cupboard. Budget ₹3 to ₹4.9 lakh for a proper one at this specification. It is used every day, which is more than can be said for most of what a luxury budget buys.
Two constraints on the tall towers
- Transfer slabs and fixing restrictions. The podium towers on LBS Marg restrict drilling into transfer slabs and often into post-tensioned floor slabs. It decides how a heavy ceiling, a sliding panel track or a chandelier is supported, and it has to be read from the fit-out procedure before the ceiling is designed.
- One goods lift, rationed. These towers hand over many flats at once and lift slots are booked days ahead in two-hour blocks. Stone, glazing and assembled furniture all compete. We measure the lift car on the first visit and design so nothing exceeds it, then consolidate deliveries into fewer, fuller loads.
For the suburb as a whole, see interior designers in Mulund. For our luxury process and consultant team, see luxury interior designers in Mumbai.
Residential work by Greenbox Design Studio.
Frequently asked questions
How do you design for sixty guests without a function-hall feel?+
Two zones that can be opened into one another with sliding or pivoting panels, rather than one enormous room. Closed, the flat is a normal home for six. Opened, the living and family rooms become one space with a clear circulation route. It is the single most useful move available and it costs far less than the space it appears to create.
What does a proper pooja room need?+
Its own ventilation — a window or a timed extract, because lamp residue otherwise coats the ceiling — a washable stone or solid-surface base, storage sized for what is actually kept there, a dedicated warm lighting circuit with no downlight directly overhead, and flooring continuous with the adjoining room. ₹3–4.9 lakh at this specification.
Where does everyone's footwear go on a festival day?+
Into a planned entrance bench with deep pull-out storage, plus an overflow run in the utility. Sixty pairs is a genuine problem and the usual solution — a rack on the landing — annoys the neighbours and looks exactly as improvised as it is. It is a small joinery item that people remember.
Do the LBS Marg towers restrict what we can fix to the ceiling?+
Usually yes. Drilling into transfer and post-tensioned slabs is limited by the fit-out procedure, which decides how heavy ceilings, sliding panel tracks and chandeliers are supported. We read it before designing the ceiling. Discovering it afterwards means redesigning the element that the room was built around.
Is a thirty-fourth floor flat harder to fit out?+
Slower rather than harder. One goods lift serving many flats in slots, deliveries consolidated, and nothing designed larger than the lift car — which we measure on the first visit. Budget two extra weeks against a low-rise project of the same scope, almost entirely in material movement.