We turn down three out of five projects. Here is why.

The most difficult conversation we have is not with a difficult client. It is with a wonderful one, whose brief we cannot accept.

We turn down, on average, three out of every five projects presented to us. This is not selectivity for its own sake. It is a consequence of the studio being small — six homes a year, no more — and of the calendar, at any given point, already being 70% full.

The refusals are, occasionally, painful. But they are always the right decision, and here is why.

What happens when a studio takes too much on

The most common failure mode in Indian residential design is not bad taste. It is calendar overload. A studio takes on the seventh project when they have capacity for five. The first five projects were promised weekly site presence — the last two are promised the same, without the hours to deliver it.

The lie catches up in month four. By month six, two clients are frustrated. By month eight, one of them is calling their lawyer.

We saw this pattern in five studios we admired between 2015 and 2020. It is the single most reliable killer of a good design practice. It also makes the client's home worse — not because the designer is bad, but because presence is a material, and it has been rationed.

Our arithmetic

We take six projects a year. Each project runs, on average, eleven months. We have two founders and eleven staff. In practice, this means the studio has approximately 5.5 projects live at any moment.

At six projects a year, our founder attends site weekly. At eight, the visits become fortnightly. At ten, they become monthly, and it stops being our practice — it becomes a small firm.

We are trying to remain a practice.

Why we say no

Timeline mismatch. A client wants to begin in March. Our calendar opens in September. If the client cannot wait, we refuse. We do not try to squeeze.

Budget mismatch. Not that a project is too small — that a project is unfeasible at the budget stated. If a client tells us they want to renovate a 5 BHK to premium standards on a mid-market budget, we say so, plainly. Some clients reconsider. Most go elsewhere. Both of these are acceptable outcomes.

Fit mismatch. A brief that requires taste we do not have. A client who wants a heavily traditional aesthetic, or a colour-forward aesthetic, or a heavily curated collection of luxury brands. These are real briefs and there are excellent studios for them. We are not one of them. We refer the client on.

Turning down work is what allows us to do the work we take on. It is the least glamorous part of the practice, and one of the most important.

What we tell the ones we turn away

We tell them what we would tell a friend. We recommend the studios we would trust for their brief. We do not gatekeep. Every refused client leaves with two or three specific names, and permission to mention ours.

Roughly one in three of these clients comes back, a year or two later, for a different project. This has been true for six years running.