Interior design

Planning first, finishes last

The questions that decide whether a space works are unglamorous: where does the morning crowd stand, which door swings into which path, where does everything live when it is not being used, and what happens in this room at its busiest half hour. Finishes are chosen after those are answered. Reverse the order and you get a room that photographs well and frustrates the people in it.

Storage is a design problem

In compact homes — and most homes in Bhubaneswar are compact by the standards the furniture industry designs for — storage bought after handover is what makes a house feel small. Designed in from the start, taken to full height and built into the depth of walls, the same volume disappears into the architecture.

Lighting does more than any other single decision

One fixture in the middle of a ceiling flattens a room and puts shadows on faces. A warm general layer, task light where people actually read, cook and work, and a little light on the vertical surfaces will make a modest room feel considerably better than an expensive palette will. It is also one of the cheapest things to get right and one of the most disruptive to fix later.

Design only, or design and execution

We work both ways. A design-only commission gives you a drawing set detailed enough for your own contractor to build from — that is how the Mahalaxmi Promoters office at Phulnakhara was delivered. Where we also execute, the detailing survives contact with the site, because the people holding the tolerances are the people who drew them.

Commercial interiors have a second client

A café, clinic, hotel or office is judged by customers as well as by the owner. Flow, acoustics, durability under daily cleaning and the way the space reads in a photograph are all commercial decisions, not decorative ones, and we treat them that way.