At the foot of the Mussoorie hills, where the Doon Valley's sal forest thickens before giving way to the lower Himalayas, a 21-acre woodland estate was reimagined in 2015 as Six Senses Vana — arguably the most architecturally considered wellness retreat on the Indian subcontinent. The project was conceived under the direction of Vana's founder Veer Singh, with design guided by a philosophy of Ayurveda and Tibetan healing traditions rather than conventional resort luxury. Low-slung buildings in warm sand-coloured plaster step gently through the canopy in two-storey configurations, their facades articulated by vertical timber screens that filter light into corridors and common spaces. After dark, those same screens glow amber against the treeline, transforming the courtyard elevations into lantern-like planes of warmth, a quality particularly visible in the reflection pool at the property's heart, where slender black bamboo rises from still water in a composition closer to a Zen garden than anything drawn from the Rajasthani palace tradition that dominates Indian luxury hospitality. Inside the 82 suites, teak floors run the width of the rooms, the grain warm and unvarnished, meeting upholstered headboards in pale blonde wood with fabric panels in undyed linen. Cylindrical rattan pendant lamps and turned-wood side tables in a mushroom profile carry a quiet mid-century domesticity, while floor-to-ceiling glazing draws the surrounding forest into every room. The restaurant maintains the same palette — raw woven-fibre wall panels, brass pendant cylinders, teak-framed chairs — a space where Indian craft and Japandi restraint arrive at something genuinely its own.

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