House of Katha has established a distinctive voice in interior design, defined by an emphasis on memory, craft, and lived experience rather than visual excess. Founder Pratyusha Kethinedi views design as a form of storytelling, where the client, the site, and materiality carry equal weight. Her practice consciously moves away from fleeting trends, focusing instead on spaces that mature gracefully and feel lived-in from the outset. In this conversation with Asma Rafat, Senior Correspondent, Realty+, Kethinedi reflects on nostalgia, originality, and authorship, while examining the evolving role of Indian designers within an increasingly global visual landscape. She also addresses leadership, collaboration, and the ethics of designing homes that support everyday life.
House of Katha is rooted in the idea of storytelling. When you begin a project, whose story are you really telling first: the client’s, the spaces, or your own as a designer?
Pratyusha Kethinedi: We are always starting off trying to tell the clients story, they are always central to the space. Having said that context of the space also makes a lot of difference. Is the site in a historical building , what is the neighbourhood like, are we overlooking a garden, park etc. We as designers play the role of narrators, narrating the story or lived experiences of our clients and the memory space holds from our lens.
Indian heritage is often used as a visual reference in interiors. How do you move beyond motifs and surface aesthetics to translate heritage as feeling, memory, or lived experience?
Pratyusha Kethinedi: We look at Indian heritage from architectural forms, materiality and craft pov. We try to learn from vernacular architecture say how have they used the flooring or how the arches are framing a space. We try to get to the crux of a design style and reinterpret it and add our spin rather than copy pasting the elements as is.
Many of your spaces evoke nostalgia without feeling dated. What does nostalgia mean to you personally, and how do you prevent it from tipping into pastiche?
Pratyusha Kethinedi: To me nostalgia is a deep sense of familiarity through which we feel a sense of continuity and belonging. Nostalgia is an emotional anchor which we connect not just through architectural details, it could be the texture of stone underfoot, the plant from grandma’s courtyard or a particular fragrance we grew up around. It is an everyday ritual, the ordinary we grew up around and not exoticized. For us it is quiet anchor, a way of grounding modern design in memory, so spaces feel emotionally inhabited from the moment someone walks-in.
As a bespoke studio, how do you balance the intimacy of handcrafted details with the practical demands of contemporary living?
Pratyusha Kethinedi: We always look at spaces as living breathing beings inhabited by real people. It is extremely important for us that these spaces not just adapt but improve the lifestyle of our clients, not just on day 1 by even 5years down the lane. So every detail we want to execute comes with a thought of it fits into the space, for the clients and how it’s going to age over time.
Can you walk us through a project where the narrative changed midway, perhaps because the client discovered something new about how they wanted to live?
Pratyusha Kethinedi: We have been extremely lucky that from day 1 we have always had Multi-layered systems in place. To thoroughly understand our clients, their lifestyles and their aesthetic preferences. This usually happens through a series of conversations, questionnaires and even images. A lot of it is usually carefully listening to client sometimes even if it’s in the subtext.
In an era of fast design and Pinterest-driven sameness, how do you protect originality and authorship in your work?
Pratyusha Kethinedi: Pinterest can be as much of a boon as a bane and it depends on how we use it, both within the team and clients. One things that works very well for us is, keeping it clear right from the Stuart that we do not copy anyone’s work and our clients have always been respectful. What does work for us from Pinterest Images from clients is their visual language, we look for a common thread connecting various images that come to us and that become a good foundation we start off on.
Materials play a quiet but powerful role in your interiors. Are there materials or crafts you repeatedly return to, and what stories do they carry for you?
Pratyusha Kethinedi: We are always open to exploration and love to use a variety of material and craft in our work. One thing we aren’t willing to compromise in our work though is the quality of material, finishes and we keep leaning on to natural materials as much as possible be it stone, wood and love the textural depth from fabrics like velvets, linens.
How do you see the role of Indian interior designers evolving today, especially as global aesthetics and local traditions increasingly intersect?
Pratyusha Kethinedi: We live in a very global environment today where we are exposed to design trends from all over the world and we are reaching a point of global sameness. Be it the way we dress, we eat or live. In this world of global sameness we see a shift of designers be it fashion, interiors or even graphic design shifting to embracing the uniqueness of being us and becoming flag bearers for the richness of craft and culture we come from.
As a woman founder in the design industry, what were the early challenges of building House of Katha, and how has your leadership style evolved over time?
Pratyusha Kethinedi: From being treated like a little girl “oh, she’s too young” to drawings not being followed on site to site team using their own design ideas there has been it all. Over the years definitely there is a certain firmness that developed which helps and also the reputation or work preceding definitely made a lot of difference. Having pointed out the drawbacks I have to also give it to numerous site teams that have been incredibly efficient, helpful and even more inclusive because it is a women founder.
When someone lives in a House of Katha–designed space for years, what do you hope remains constant, and what do you hope changes with them?
Pratyusha Kethinedi: I do hope that our homes have enough space for our clients to shift, change and grow through various seasons in their life. I hope the bones of the home are timeless enough for it be intact or not need a change but have space for them to add in their personality and collection over time. We at the studio are always conscious that our homes should grow with time and we intentionally create pockets of space for clients to curate and add in over the years
