Skip to content
Khushboo Mankani Architecture

Projects / Hospitality

Mahal: a hotel in Udaipur

A competition entry for a hotel in the city of lakes, where the courtyard, the jharokha and the water body do the work the air conditioning usually does.

  • Competition
  • Award
  • Team project
  • c. 2024
Render of the hotel's main court, a symmetrical water garden leading to a domed block, framed by tall scalloped arches
View 01The approach: a symmetrical water court leading to the main block

00Project data

KMA / MHL·24

Project
Mahal: a hotel in Udaipur (Hospitality)
Location
Udaipur, Rajasthan
Context
Competition entry, semester 8
Institution
Sir J.J. College of Architecture, Mumbai
Year
c. 2024
Authorship
Team project
Recognition
Best Student Design Award (Archmello, Innovative Hotel Design)
Tools
AutoCAD, Rhino, Adobe Photoshop

01Brief

KMA / MHL·24

Udaipur has always cooled itself with courtyards, screens and water. The hotel borrows all three.

Mahal takes the three elements of Udaipur's palaces, the courtyard, the jharokha (a projecting stone balcony) and the jaali (a perforated screen), and sets them in a plain, minimal geometry.

Water runs through the plan because it works before it decorates: it shades the courts, cools the air that crosses it and doubles the arcades in reflection. Guests move from the open public court through narrower, shaded spaces to the rooms, which look back onto water.

02Views

KMA / MHL·24

  • Render of the main hotel block, a long arcaded wing in pink stone beside a water channel
    View 03Main hotel block
  • Render of the villa pool overlooked by scalloped arches in pink stone
    View 04The villas
  • Render from the restaurant looking along a colonnade beside the water
    View 05From the restaurant
  • Render of the entrance reception with a chandelier, and of a spa treatment room
    View 06Entrance reception and spa
  • Render of a long arcade of pink arches with perforated screens along one side
    View 07The arcade
  • Render of a guest bedroom with a four-poster bed against a patterned wall, an arched opening onto a balcony and the pool beyond
    View 08A guest room: the arch opens onto the pool

03Drawings

KMA / MHL·24

Master plan of the hotel with banquet lawns, villas, swimming pool, restaurant, spa and a formal four-part (charbagh) garden at the centre
Drawing 01Master plan: a formal garden holds the plan together

04Recognition

KMA / MHL·24

  • 01

    Best Student Design Award

    Archmello, Innovative Hotel Design. Submitted as a team entry.