Beneath the Boom: Insights From India’s Construction Surge

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India is undergoing one of the world’s largest construction booms, with the industry projected to exceed two trillion dollars by 2030. Highways, railways and logistics networks are being built at a record pace, while the demand for housing and workplaces continues to climb across both metropolitan and regional centers. The sheer scale of investment has turned the country into a proving ground for how fast a built environment can change.

But within this story of growth lies another, quieter one. Alongside the figures and infrastructure plans, recent projects reveal a shift in how architecture is conceived less as a matter of expansion alone and more as a search for resilience, identity and social value. Housing is being shaped to counter extreme heat, schools are opening themselves to nature, corporate campuses are testing net-zero strategies and cultural buildings are placing heritage and landscape at the forefront.

India’s boom is vast, but the work emerging from it suggests that something more lasting may be underway: a new design culture taking root in the very midst of rapid change.

1. Homes for a Changing Nation: Climate and Community at the Core

Residential construction is the backbone of India’s building boom, forming the largest share of new development as cities expand and rural populations migrate toward urban centers. Yet within this vast demand, many architects are proving that housing can do more than meet numerical targets. Across the country, new homes are experimenting with strategies that respond to extreme heat, promote ventilation and create a stronger sense of community. Rather than demoting resilience and social life to secondary considerations, both qualities are considered integral to how domestic architecture is conceived.

SCREEN 504 by Sanjay Puri Architects, Udaipur, India | Popular Choice Winner, Multi Unit Housing (High Rise – 16+ Floors), 13th Architizer A+Awards

SCREEN 504 by Sanjay Puri Architects, Udaipur, India | Popular Choice Winner, Multi Unit Housing (High Rise – 16+ Floors), 13th Architizer A+Awards

In Udaipur, Screen 504 shows how these principles can operate at the scale of a high-rise. Drawing on the city’s tradition of screened balconies, the twenty-one–storey tower incorporates shaded decks that filter harsh sun while offering residents layered outdoor spaces. It demonstrates how vernacular ideas can be reimagined for contemporary urban housing, turning a dense residential block into a model for climate-conscious living.

Vaazh by vy architecture studio, Chennai, India

Vaazh by vy architecture studio, Chennai, India

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Vaazh in Chennai illustrates how the same thinking applies to a single family home. The revival of the thinnai — a raised veranda that connects household and street — makes the residence porous to neighbors, animals and climate alike. By rooting the design in this traditional threshold, the house becomes less an isolated dwelling and more a participant in the life of its neighborhood.

2. Knowledge and Community Spaces: Building for the Next Generation

If housing illustrates the scale of India’s construction surge, its schools and community centers reflect the kinds of values that growth is beginning to carry. Recent projects show an interest in openness, accessibility and a closer connection to everyday life, turning educational and civic buildings into active parts of their surroundings.

Nokha Village Community Centre by Sanjay Puri Architects, Nokha, India | Popular Choice Winner, Libraries, 13th Architizer A+Awards

Nokha Village Community Centre by Sanjay Puri Architects, Nokha, India | Popular Choice Winner, Libraries, 13th Architizer A+Awards

In Rajasthan, the Nokha Village Community Centre brings these ambitions into a desert landscape. Its looping form encloses a shaded courtyard, while sandstone screens and a sloping rooftop garden respond directly to the climate. Inside are resources that have long been absent in the region, from a digital library for children to a museum of local culture, each framed by construction methods and materials drawn from nearby villages.

Centre for Inclusive Growth & Competitiveness for Tapmi by The Purple Ink Studio, Manipal, India | Jury Winner, Community Centers, 13th Architizer A+Awards

Centre for Inclusive Growth & Competitiveness for Tapmi by The Purple Ink Studio, Manipal, India | Jury Winner, Community Centers, 13th Architizer A+Awards

In Manipal, the TAPMI Centre for Sustainability reshapes the idea of an academic block. The design spills outward into terraces and an open amphitheater, with circulation paths that merge into the life of the campus. By keeping its edges porous, the building attracts activity well beyond class hours, offering students and the wider community spaces for gathering, study and exchange.

Both of these examples suggest that institutional design in India is moving toward a more public role, one that makes education and community visible and accessible in equal measure.

3. Infrastructure as Identity: Landmark Architecture on a National Scale

While the most dominant typologies respond to daily life, it is the large civic investments that most visibly alter the country’s architectural landscape. Some of the latest widely recognized projects act as symbols as much as they do functional buildings, signaling how the country envisions its place in the world.

Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru — Terminal 2 by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), Bengaluru, India. Jury Winner and Popular Choice Winner, 12th Annual A+Awards, Sustainable Transportation Project.

In Bengaluru, the Kempegowda International Airport Terminal 2 frames travel through the lens of landscape. Gardens, bamboo structures and daylit halls turn the terminal into an architectural emblem of the city’s identity as India’s “garden capital,” while its LEED Platinum pre-certification highlights a growing commitment to sustainability.

Yashobhoomi by CP Kukreja Architects, New Delhi, India

Yashobhoomi by CP Kukreja Architects, New Delhi, India

In Delhi, the Yashobhoomi Convention Centre underscores the global aspirations of India’s boom. Stretching across hundreds of acres, it combines vast auditoriums and exhibition halls with green boulevards and car-free zones, marking it as both a site of international exchange and a statement of national ambition.

Large-scale civic projects like these are not only shaping infrastructure, but are also changing the image of the country to both the world and to its own citizens.

4. Work and Innovation: Creative Corporate Campuses and Studios

The commercial surge in India has often been measured in warehouses, logistics parks and IT hubs, but the design of workplaces themselves is undergoing its own transformation. As companies expand, offices are being asked to carry more weight than simple functionality: they are expected to model sustainability, represent cultural values and support new patterns of collaboration.

Infosys Campus by Morphogenesis, Nagpur, India

Infosys Campus by Morphogenesis, Nagpur, India

In Nagpur, the Infosys Campus translates these ambitions into a large-scale experiment. Its net-zero design incorporates passive cooling, radiant systems and carefully oriented floor plates to cut energy use, while its façades carry local references that tie global technology to regional identity.

ADND SILO by Atelier Design N Domain, Mumbai, India

ADND SILO by Atelier Design N Domain, Mumbai, India

In Mumbai, the ADND SILO illustrates how the same ambitions play out in smaller, adaptive contexts. A former industrial silo has been recast as a design studio headquarters, retaining its rough shell while introducing expressive new interiors that speak to the studio’s creative ethos.

5. Culture and Identity: Spaces That Celebrate Heritage

Amid the speed of infrastructure and commercial growth, cultural projects are showing how architecture in India remains tied to heritage, storytelling and the shaping of collective identity. Some of these works may be smaller in scale than airports or campuses, but they carry an outsized role in linking contemporary design to history and landscape.

Hampi Art Labs by Sameep Padora and Associates (sP+a), Hampi, India. Photos by: Studio Recall

Hampi Art Labs by Sameep Padora and Associates (sP+a), Hampi, India. Photos by: Studio Recall

In Hampi, Hampi Art Labs sets a cultural campus into the terrain itself, its iron oxide walls and curving forms rising like extensions of the surrounding hills. Focusing on art, heritage and landscape, the project draws international attention while remaining rooted in local materials and traditions.

The Forest of Knowledge by studio HINGE, Mumbai, India, Popular Choice Winner, 13th Annual A+Awards, Educational Interiors. Photos by: Suryan & Dang, studio HINGE

The Forest of Knowledge by studio HINGE, Mumbai, India, Popular Choice Winner, 13th Annual A+Awards, Educational Interiors. Photos by: Suryan & Dang, studio HINGE

This idea of preserving heritage and bringing it closer to everyday life also translates into more intimate settings. In Mumbai, the Forest of Knowledge reimagines what a library can look like in the digital age. Columns transformed into tree-like structures, circular bookshelves, and open reading spaces recreate the atmosphere of reading under a canopy, while new programs such as film screenings and workshops make the library a gathering space as much as an archive.

Cultural projects such as these affirm that India’s construction boom is not only about scale and speed, but about continuity as well, sustaining stories, places and practices that define the country’s identity.

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