Architecture + Design – July 2026

Summary

Kulmeet Shangari and Jasreen Shangari's firm ACPL appears on the cover of the July 2026 Vol. 43 Issue 7 of Architecture+Design, the Indian architecture journal at INR 200, under the theme New Urban Frontiers — a 96-page issue investigating mixed-use building typologies in high-density Indian cities, with projects spanning MVRDV's La Vallee Verte in France (page 56), BIG's Tennessee Performing Arts Center (page 70), Lijo.Reny.architects' House Veiled in Brick in Kerala (page 78), and Yellow Door Architects' Split House in Bengaluru (page 90).

The Cover Feature (page 24), The Discipline Within Design by Kulmeet Shangari and Jasreen Shangari, examines how their practice resists signature style — every project demands its own answer and its own language. Director Sonal Das's Foreword (page 4) argues that mixed-use is not a typology but urbanism honestly facing how people actually live, noting that the question is no longer whether to stack functions but how to do it without losing neighbourhood character. Project Features include A Green Refuge by MVRDV in La Vallee Verte, France (page 56), When Learning Finds Its Playground — The Big Little School in Bareilly by Design Ally Studio (page 64), Theatre As Urban Gesture — the Tennessee Performing Arts Center by BIG, William Rawn Associates and HASTINGS Architecture (page 70), A House That Whispers in Kerala by LIJO.RENY.architects (page 78), A Texas for Urban Socialisation — Eldeco Centre in New Delhi by Design Forum International (page 84), and Between Density and Stillness — Split House in Bengaluru by Yellow Door Architects (page 90). The Spotlight section (pages 39-48) profiles 10 interior design practices including Rusha Kapasi, Gaurav Kharkar, Ratish V Raj, Asummi Rawat, Hasnain Zafar, Danesh Rustom, Nayan Shah, Komal Sachdev and Dipttii Khanna. The Special Feature Second Cities, First Chances (pages 49-54) covers practice in India's tier-2 cities with Snehal Shah, Niroop Kumar Reddy and Ashwani Duggal.

Regular features include Updates (page 10), Special Features on Crafting World-class Luxury in Nagpur (page 20), and An Evening at Interio by Godrej (page 22). Advertising partners include Tipwood natural-fibre composite decking, Prominance UPVC window systems with 25,000+ hours UV testing, ESmart/ebco smart locks with palm and face recognition, and VOX ceilings and flooring.

Editor's Take

The July issue is one of the better Architecture+Design issues this year, thanks largely to Sonal Das's Foreword, which is the most honest piece of writing in the magazine — she openly acknowledges that most mixed-use developments are just "apartments on top of a mall" with no walkable connection between them. The strongest project is Split House by Yellow Door Architects in Bengaluru, which genuinely addresses density and stillness as spatial rather than typological problems. The weakest section is the Spotlight feature — 10 interior design profiles in 10 pages means none of them gets more than a single image and 50 words. The Second Cities feature is well-intentioned but reads as a directory rather than analysis. This is for Indian architecture students and practitioners who need built project references, not for critical urban theory readers.

Strengths
• Sonal Das's Foreword is the most honest assessment of Indian mixed-use development in print
• Split House by Yellow Door Architects genuinely addresses density through spatial means
• Good geographic spread from Kerala to Tennessee to France

Weaknesses
• Spotlight section spreads 10 practices across 10 pages — no depth for any of them
• Second Cities feature is a directory, not an analysis of tier-2 urban conditions

Verdict: Recommended — The Foreword and Split House project make this worth buying; skip the Spotlight directory.