Getting light into the middle
- Keep the ground floor open front to back. A row house 4.5 metres wide and 12 metres deep with two cross walls has a dark middle third that no amount of artificial light fixes convincingly. Open it and the daylight from both ends meets.
- Put the stair against a party wall, not in the middle. A central stair divides the plan and blocks the through view. Against the wall it keeps the light path clear and it is easier to service.
- Open the stairwell to the roof if you can. A rooflight over the stair at the top floor drops daylight down the full height of the house and it is the single most effective intervention available. ₹45,000–₹1.8 lakh depending on size and whether it is openable.
- Borrowed light between rooms. A 300 mm clerestory of obscured glass above an internal partition, or a glazed panel in an internal door, moves daylight from a lit room to an unlit one without any loss of privacy.
- Keep the colours light in the middle and let the ends be darker. The reverse of the usual advice, and it is correct here because the ends have daylight to spare.
- Design the artificial lighting for daytime too. The middle of a row house needs light at two in the afternoon. That is a wall wash on a separate circuit, not the evening scene turned on early.
Stacking the levels
| Level | Usual content | Design note |
|---|---|---|
| Ground | Entrance, living, dining, kitchen, powder room, utility, parking | The most public and the most constrained; parking often takes a third of the frontage |
| First | Two or three bedrooms, family bathroom | The main private floor; the quietest rooms go to the back |
| Second or top | Master suite, study, terrace access | Often the best room in the house because of the light and the terrace |
| Terrace | Outdoor living, utility drying, tanks | Waterproofing and drainage are the same problem as a penthouse |
| Stair core | Against a party wall, all levels | Position it once, on all floors, and let everything else arrange around it |
Stack the wet areas vertically on the party wall. It shortens every pipe run, keeps plumbing noise away from the outer rooms and simplifies every service route.
Narrow, deep, and lit from two ends only
Party walls
- Assume the wall transmits sound. Most Indian row-house party walls are 200–230 mm brick or block with no cavity, which gives poor airborne insulation at low frequencies. A television or a conversation is audible in a quiet room.
- An independent lining is the effective remedy. A 50 mm stud wall built clear of the party wall with 50 mm mineral wool and two layers of 12.5 mm board, not touching the masonry anywhere. It costs ₹380–₹720 per sq ft and takes 100 mm of room width.
- Never chase the party wall. A chase for a conduit is a direct sound path, and in older construction it is a structural question as well.
- Do not fix noisy things to it. A television bracket, a speaker or a headboard hard against a party wall transmits directly. Keep them on internal or external walls.
- Put the stair, the wet areas and the storage against the party wall and the bedrooms and living space against the outer walls. This is free acoustic separation and it also simplifies the services.
- Mind the neighbour during construction. Drilling and chasing on a shared wall is felt next door. Photograph their side before you start and tell them the programme.
The entrance and the parking
A row house frontage is typically 4 to 6 metres wide and a car needs 2.5 of it. What is left has to accommodate the entrance, and how that is handled sets the first impression of the whole house.
| Arrangement | Frontage needed | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Car in front, entrance beside it | 5.5 – 6.5 m | The comfortable arrangement; both work properly |
| Car in front, entrance through the car porch | 4.0 – 5.0 m | Common and workable; the porch has to be detailed as an entrance, not a leftover |
| Car in a stilt below, entrance at a half level | 4.0 m | Good use of a narrow plot; adds steps at the door |
| Car on the road, full frontage to the entrance | 3.5 m+ | The best entrance and the worst parking; increasingly not a choice |
| Two cars | 6.5 m+, or tandem | Tandem parking works if the household accepts the shuffle |
Every row house we survey has a dark middle and a beautiful back room nobody uses because you have to walk through the dark middle to get there. Open the plan and put a rooflight over the stair, and the whole house changes.
Greenbox principal designer
Services in a narrow plan
- A riser against the party wall serving all levels, with isolation valves per floor. Retrofitting a riser in a finished row house means opening every floor.
- A distribution board per level, and a main at the entrance. Three floors on one board is a fault-finding exercise nobody enjoys.
- Water storage and the pump. Underground sump, overhead tank and a booster set, with the pump in a position that is accessible and acoustically isolated from the bedrooms.
- AC condensate on a vertical route down the party wall to a drain, not run horizontally through ceilings on each floor.
- Kitchen exhaust needs an external wall. In a deep plan the kitchen is often in the middle, and the duct run to the rear wall has to be planned before the ceiling.
- A mesh or grille on every opening. Two external walls means limited ventilation, so the windows will be open, and in most row-house locations that means insects.
Related and local
For row houses in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region — where most of them are in Navi Mumbai, Thane and the northern suburbs — see row house interior designers in Mumbai. For a detached house on its own plot, see villa interior design; for two levels inside a building, duplex interior design.
Selected work by Greenbox Design Studio. Tap any image to enlarge.
Frequently asked questions
How do you get light into the middle of a row house?+
Keep the ground floor open front to back rather than dividing it with cross walls, put the stair against a party wall instead of in the middle, and open the stairwell to a rooflight at the top so daylight falls down the full height. A rooflight costs ₹45,000–₹1.8 lakh and is the single most effective intervention available.
How do you reduce noise from the neighbours?+
An independent lining on the party wall — a 50 mm stud built clear of the masonry with 50 mm mineral wool and two layers of 12.5 mm board, touching nothing — at ₹380–₹720 per sq ft, costing 100 mm of room width. Then keep televisions, speakers and headboards off that wall and never chase a conduit into it.
Where should the staircase go in a row house?+
Against a party wall, in the same position on every level. A central stair divides an already narrow plan and blocks the through view from front to back. Against the wall it keeps the light path clear, simplifies the services and leaves the outer walls for rooms that benefit from daylight.
What does a row house interior cost?+
₹1,300–₹3,200 per sq ft of built-up area, ex-GST, across two or three levels. A 1,600 sq ft row house therefore runs about ₹20.8 lakh to ₹51.2 lakh depending on specification, before any external work, landscaping or terrace treatment.
Should wet areas be stacked?+
Yes, vertically and against the party wall. It shortens every pipe run, keeps plumbing noise away from the rooms on the outer walls, simplifies the riser and the AC condensate route, and leaves the front and back of every floor for living space that can use the daylight.
How much frontage does a row house need for parking?+
A car takes 2.5 metres. With 5.5–6.5 metres of frontage the car and a separate entrance both work comfortably. At 4.0–5.0 metres the entrance goes through the car porch, which is fine if the porch is detailed as an entrance rather than left over. Below that, either a stilt below or parking on the road.