Nataraj & Venkat Architects

This office has been on Paddy Field Road in Chennai for a long time. Specifically, we are at 34/03, which is a spot most locals in the 600 011 zip code area know well. Nataraj and Venkat started this partnership because they both just liked the idea of building things that actually work for people living in Tamil Nadu. The weather here is no joke, so we spend a lot of time thinking about heat and ventilation without using big fancy words for it. It’s a bit crowded in the office with all the old files and rolls of drawings from years ago. We haven’t moved much since we started. Sometimes the fans are humming, and we are just sitting there debating over a floor plan for hours. We don't really do the whole social media thing or put out glossy ads in the papers. People just find us or hear about us from their cousins and friends. It is a very direct way of doing business. You come in, you tell us what you need, and we draw it up for you. We have seen the city change a lot from our window on Paddy Field Road. New buildings go up, old ones come down, but we just keep doing our thing. It’s a lot of coordination with contractors who sometimes don't listen, but we manage. We aren't trying to be the biggest firm in India, just a reliable one here in our corner of Chennai.