“There is a difference between a house and a home, between the product and the process,” says Balkrishna Doshi. “It starts with an understanding: I’m going to make a home, so I not only want to be comfortable but I want to feel comfortable. I want to feel happy.”

For more than half a century, Doshi has applied this simple philosophy to his work at Vastu-Shilpa, the architectural studio he founded in 1955 in Ahmedabad, India. A protégé of Le Corbusier and former associate of Louis Kahn, Doshi has created influential architecture himself; his work reads like early prototypes to the projects built by his current contemporaries—Bijoy Jain of Studio Mumbai, for example.

In blending climatic modernism with a sensory approach to and a deep understanding of vernacular craftsmanship...