| In olden days, mans power & prestige was measured by the cattles he had & by the space he owned in front of his house. Is the practice making a come back?
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We recently designed a residential interior, a house at Malabar Hill that had a carpet area of 600 sq ft-The driving force behind the design is the landscape that the apartment overlooks. The site offered an exceptionally beautiful view of the Queens Necklace at Marine Drive through thick foliage. In order to have the house resonate with the landscape outside, we tried to dissolve spatial boundaries both within the house and outside. As a result there are no clear hard lines to demarcate different spaces. Spaces flow freely inside and outside the house.
There is a conscious effort to keep the floor space uncluttered. This was achieved through the overall planning and furniture design. A lot of furniture serves more than one purpose or is openable to serve another function. Despite the small size, the visual impact of the spaces gives this apartment a sense of expanse. When we got the apartment, the original design was fragmented rooms, joined together by corridors. We realized that over 20% of the floor area was wasted in the passage area and we redesigned to bring it down to zero. All elements of design, be it the floor plan, materials, colours of walls-floors-upholstery, detail of doors-windows-furniture, all revolved around, enhanced and complemented the landscape out-side.
Storage is an important part of any planning and more so for a residence. We calculated the storage requirement in cubic feet. It meant calculating the volume of existing storage for kitchen, bedroom and general home storage. From this a projection was made, considering future requirements. The final figures in terms of cubic feet were arrived at after rigorous calculations. Now the task lay in assigning space and location so that there would be a feeling of spaciousness and also a connection with the outside. Much energy was spent on achieving simplicity. The plan had to reflect smooth flow of space. One enters into a small semi-enclosed space so that
the living room isnt thrown open to the main door. A couple of steps in the house, one is visually attracted to the view of the foliage out-side. Immediately one cuts across through the entire living room and into the landscape outside.
All elements of the living room actually become a foreground to this view. The Jaiselmer floor, mango and white walls, bright fabrics and wooden windows complement the green outside. The windows are designed to be without mullions by giving a sliding-folding arrangement thus giving an uninterrupted view. The greens outside can be seen right till the floor level through the wooden louvers and glass. The entertainment unit with television and some bookshelves are tucked away in a niche so as to not disturb the spatiality of the living room. The divan is openable so as to become a double bed.
The kitchen is open visually but demarcated from the dining area clearly by a low storage element that looks like a parapet wall from the living room. The dining table sits against this parapet wall, the surface of which acts as a serving platform. The dining table is a table for six extendable to eight. From the living room one sees bright hand-painted yellow-green tiles of the kitchen dado as if bringing in the landscape. In the bedroom too, the same language of wooden windows and complementing bright colours carries through. The flooring is Kota and walls are lime green, white and bright yellow.
The different planes of the wall resulting from different beam and wall thicknesses (a common problem in most apartments) have been treated by exaggerating the level difference by giving them different colours. The mirror and study in bedroom are openable elements. Throughout the entire project dark wood has been juxtaposed with light wood.
The biggest restraint and also the biggest challenge was the tightness of space. In such a small space to give the feeling of openness while taking into account the clients personal requirement of excess storage space demanded a very careful organization of every inch of space.
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