In the summer of 1993, two young men—Niranjan and Sachin—walked into architecture school in Pune with nothing more than backpacks, oversized ambitions, and the kind of mischievous energy that gave professors headaches. They were the sort who could organize a student strike in the morning, design a college exhibition by afternoon, and pull off a harmless prank before dinner. By the time they graduated in 1998, they had collected degrees, memories, and a stubborn belief that they would one day “do things differently.”
Bangalore was their finishing school. The city’s glass-and-concrete skyline, filter coffee, and endless rainstorms taught them how design could be both disciplined and daring. It was also where they got their first taste of the professional grind—deadlines, client tantrums, and the realization that “design fees” and “design respect” don’t always arrive in the same envelope. Still, the city planted in them a quiet hunger for independence.
Life, of course, enjoys playing traffic police. After graduation, it waved the red flag and sent them in opposite directions. Sachin took the creative detour to Singapore, pursuing film production and learning how to tell stories in moving frames. Niranjan stayed back in India, rolled up his sleeves, and learned the hard truths of architecture through a full-time job: long hours, tight budgets, and the occasional client who thought AutoCAD was some sort of car insurance. Different paths, but the same itch—the itch to build something meaningful.
Five years later, in 2003, the two reunited in Pune. Older, maybe wiser, definitely poorer, but still brimming with ideas. They started axii in a shared room so small that the drafting table doubled as the lunch table. The name itself hinted at symmetry and balance, though the reality was anything but. Yet their ambitions were never modest: they wanted to prove that design could be fearless, honest, and downright fun.
The next two decades were less a straight line and more a rollercoaster with missing seat belts. There were economic slowdowns, market pressures, and the usual “why don’t you try a government job” advice from well-wishers. But Niranjan and Sachin refused to blink. With dogged determination—and probably too much caffeine—they carved out a place for axii as a design house that stood for creativity, innovation, transparency, and trust. From individuals wanting homes with personality to multinational corporations wanting glass boxes with personality, axii became the go-to name.
Their footprint widened in directions they had once only sketched on tracing paper. Residences with soul, commercial offices that worked harder than their employees, industrial spaces that married efficiency with dignity, mixed-use complexes where chaos somehow found harmony, and even vast land bank projects that made real-estate developers temporarily believe in “responsible planning.” The steady flow of work was not just a measure of scale—it was living proof that axii had mastered the art of turning challenges into value.
Inside the office, though, axii was never just about blueprints and deadlines. It was about respect, banter, late-night learning, and the occasional samosa-fueled brainstorming. Many who passed through the studio’s doors went on to build their own flourishing careers, both in India and abroad, carrying with them the culture of camaraderie and resilience that axii quietly instilled.
Now, two decades later, axii is less a company and more a stubborn philosophy. It continues with one sharp focus: to add value through design, no matter how small the project or how impossible the brief. The story that began with two classmates in Pune is still being written—seasoned by time, sharpened by failures, and powered by the same irreverent spirit that once made them pranksters in college. Only now, the punchline is serious: axii is here to stay.
