Hemali Landscape Studio

04/12/2025

Honoured and humbled to be part of AD100 list of architects and designers in the country . Thank you Architectural Digest India !

11/05/2025

Posted • Would you guess that this home is over 80 years old? This 1939 bungalow finds a new lease on life!

In 1976, in Valsad, Gujarat, Ballubhai Makanji Desai made a promise to an elderly homeowner when purchasing his ancestral bungalow: for as long as he lived, he would light a candle by the well at sundown, honouring his Parsi compatriot whose family’s voices these walls had absorbed for nearly four decades. It was his son, Harshad, who first noticed when the candle dimmed. By the time Harshad’s son, Gautam, and Gautam’s wife, Ekta, approached architect Hardik Shah and Krishna Kapadia of Surat-based Studio Lagom
in 2016 to demolish the old house and start anew, another relic had been added to the list. It was a plinth introduced one year earlier by an architect who had since abandoned the new construction. It stood there, unfinished and uncertain, a metaphor for a house caught between past and future. If there was one thing the Desais wanted above all else, it was to honour the home’s predecessor, if not through brick and mortar, then through its materiality and furniture. Hardik salvaged and repurposed elements from its heritage, incorporating wood — some reclaimed from the old house, some sourced elsewhere — into shutters, cabinets and storage units.

Tour the home from our link in bio!

Text by Vaishnavi Nayel Talawadekar
Photography by Ish*ta Sitwala
Styling by Samir Wadekar
Landscape design by Umesh Wakaley (Studio Roots) & Hemali Samant (Hemali Landscape Studio)

Furniture: .india
Furnishings: Mehra Carpets
Art and decor: Satish Bhanubhai Chittara
Lighting:

26/02/2025

We are truly honoured for second time to be part of ID honours 2025 in ‘Landscape design’category. Thank you to all jury members for recognising our work .

We are thankful and greatful to my amazing team family, friends , architects and clients for all support and encouragement.

Congratulations to all the fellow winners. It was great to meet and see everyone . Thank you team for putting up amazing show and beautiful event.

28/11/2024

Thank you & for featuring us of this wonderful garden issue 2024 ! 💚💚
Posted • 𝟏𝟎 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧.

2/5: Arborists, botanists, gardeners, landscape designers—we feature 10 specialists who work with plants, not as an afterthought in architecture but as the very origin of space making.

Image 1: Hemali Samant ()

While studying landscape architecture at CEPT in Ahmedabad, Samant’s sketches resembled still- life drawings: a building encircled by trees and plants. “I was fascinated by the association between space and nature,” she recalls. Two pivotal experiences—with Bijoy Jain of Studio Mumbai and English landscape architect Tom Stuart-Smith—shaped her practice. “Both opened my eyes to how, inside and outside, people, land and surroundings can become one.” She established her studio in 2014 and has since collaborated with local farmers to design an ecosystem full of native species for Avasara Academy in Pune; created a tropical forest for Natural Ice Creams in Juhu, Mumbai; and undertaken landscaping for Surat’s Greenlab Diamonds, among various residential and industrial gardens.

Photography:
Words:

30/04/2024

26/04/2024

15/03/2024

Our alibaug house got featured !

17/02/2024

Thank you for
Honoured to be part of amazing set of practices in the country. Congratulations to everyone ! 🥂
An incredible day filled with gratitude and learnings.

Thank you for to all@jury members!



Thank you for putting up amazing event .

❤️