URU Design Services LLC is a UAE-registered architecture and design practice, built on a decade of project delivery from Kozhikode, Kerala. One team. Two jurisdictions. No coordination gap.
URU Design Services LLC
Dubai, UAE · 2025
URU Consulting LLP, Kozhikode · Est. 2015
Safder Machilakath leads URU Design Services LLC as Managing Partner and Principal Designer. He founded URU Consulting LLP in Kozhikode in 2015 with a specific conviction: that architecture and engineering practiced separately produces worse buildings and worse outcomes for clients. Every project at URU is an expression of that integrated model.
Safder studied architecture and then pursued interior design, accumulating a decade of practice that moved progressively from individual buildings to systems thinking: how a building performs thermally, how a spatial sequence affects how a place is inhabited, how the relationship between structural logic and spatial intent is resolved at the earliest possible stage rather than managed as a constraint later.
The Dubai entity extends that practice into the Gulf. Safder is based in Dubai, leads all Gulf commissions directly, and brings the same Kozhikode team to every UAE and KSA project. For Malayali and Kerala expat families across the Gulf, the working relationship is direct: a practice led by a designer who shares the same cultural background, understands the brief from both sides of the Gulf and Kerala context, and can conduct the full conversation in Malayalam.
Consultations are conducted in Malayalam, English or Hindi.
The discipline that defines URU's practice is integration: architecture, interior design and engineering resolved by one team under one contract from the first stage of a project. The alternative — separate architects, interior designers and engineers who must be coordinated by the client or a project manager — is how most practices in the Gulf operate. It is also how most of the avoidable problems in Gulf construction projects arise.
URU does not add engineering as a service. Engineering is how the practice was built. The structural logic of a building, the thermal performance of its envelope, the positioning of its extract shafts and the sizing of its mechanical systems are decisions that belong at the concept stage, not corrections applied after the architecture is fixed.
The Dubai practice operates as a direct extension of the Kozhikode studio. The same team works across both geographies. A client commissioning a villa in Dubai and a family home in Kerala works with the same practice, the same principal, and the same level of direct engagement, across two jurisdictions, under two appropriately structured contracts.
Building design from concept through regulatory submission and construction documentation. Massing, planning, envelope performance and permit management across DM, Trakhees, Estidama and KSA authorities.
Spatial planning, material specification, lighting design and joinery documentation. Integrated with architecture from the first stage rather than applied as a subsequent layer.
Structural, MEP and civil engineering delivered by the same practice. Thermal performance, passive cooling strategy and mechanical sizing resolved at concept, not at detailed design.
Outdoor environments, planting strategy, microclimate design and master layout for larger commissions. Outdoor space designed for Gulf seasonal performance, not appearance.
100+
Projects completed by the Kozhikode practice across Kerala, forming the depth of expertise behind every Gulf commission.
URU Design Services LLC is not a startup. It is the Gulf extension of a practice that has been delivering projects in Kerala since 2015. The Kozhikode studio has completed more than 100 projects across residential, hospitality, commercial and institutional sectors. That depth of project experience is what every Gulf commission draws on.
The registered entity in Dubai was established in 2025 to formalise what was already a working practice: Safder based in Dubai, commissions active in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and the Kozhikode team delivering the work. The UAE registration brought clarity to the structure. The substance was already there.
For clients who want to see the body of work, the India portfolio is available on request. For clients building in Kerala from the Gulf, the same practice handles both commissions, with no coordination gap between the Dubai office and the Kozhikode studio.