A-voiding the obvious in Amritsar

Renesa Architecture Design Studio resists typical residential design by building around a void

06 May 2026

There are the expected rituals: yoga mats, sound baths, early morning pilates. If you carve out just the right space, an indulgent, meditative rhythm slips into life that breathes simple. In older Indian homes, this space was carved out in the form of courtyards, where stillness settled naturally into daily life. In Amritsar, within a 12,000 sq ft sprawl, Renesa Architecture Design Studio returns to the courtyard with a monolithic but introspective thought in mind. Principal architect Sanchit Arora calls it a space anchored not in ornament but in geometry.

Dubbed the Sanctum, the home is wrapped in brick and concrete with a circular void at the center that becomes the emotional nucleus of the space, shaping how stillness settles into daily life. Early design discussions emphasised on creating a dwelling around a void accentuated with light as a material. “The idea was to juxtapose solid, rounded materials with sculpted volumes,” he says. One could catch up on their reading by the pool deck or just laze around the courtyard, settling under a sparsely vegetated tree where light scatters in fragments, some caught in the leaves and rest breaking softly against the water. There is always a dappled glow, and always the low, gurgling sound of water at The Sanctum.

The Sanctum in Amritsar, designed by Renesa Architecture Design Interiors Studio; Photography by Avesh Gaur

Monumental yet intimate

The exteriors wear exposed concrete and bricks, while inside, the Sanctum is cushioning, painted in supple whites. “This duality of rough and smooth, hard and soft, monumental and intimate gives The Sanctum its distinctive emotional charge,” shares Sanchit.

In the living room there’s that crisp but not paper thin, soft sense of Mid-century modern comfort. A classic, mid century modern paper lantern hangs from the ceiling. Underfoot there’s rich wood and a soft cream rug.

And then there’s the chef-d’œuvre: the seating, all low slung, almost all leather, the kind that only gets better with time, in colours that scratch just the right part of the brain like the deep olives, browns, soot and beige. And like confetti for ambient lighting — in case the supple sunlight filtering through the large windows veiled in soft white curtains misses a spot — there are lamps everywhere.

The living space is all things Mid-century modern. A huge moonlike paper-lantern is hung up on the cream white ceiling. Ample sunlight falls in, through the large windows, filtered through the breezy white curtains, making the space feel airy. The furniture is a neat selection of low slung leather with a geometrical coffee table at the centre of it all; Photography by Avesh Gaur

The Sanctum in Amritsar, designed by Renesa Architecture Design Interiors Studio is moves away from the predictable box-like houses. Rather, arranging itself in a more contemporary style; Photography by Avesh Gaur

NOTES ON BEING CENTRED

Once you start plucking off the cluster of geometric volumes, swooping wraps of red brick and concrete, you reach the home’s innermost sanctum and centre. A courtyard drenched in sunlight, yet shaded with leafage to mellow the warmest days and surrounded by bodies of cool water. While completely visually synonymous to the ones from the good old days, but just as restful and completely contemporary. It meditates between greens and concrete, brick reds and ocean blues, wraps the whole house around it and yet it remains the most contemplative.