Poetic Mould

By Savitha Hira

Photography: Pankaj Anand & Rajesh Vora; Courtesy SRDA

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When each participant takes a few steps forward, far-reaching changes in the stimuli-response equation can transform into path-breaking design diktats...

It is a given; to work with a mindset governed by predispositions; a comfort zone born out of habituation rather than logical reasoning; and many a time, flow with the innate pressure to perform, irrespective. In such commonplace scenario, breaking out of a preconceived mould is no mean feat. It demands exemplar courage.

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Where even the slightest shift in one’s comfort zone at times needs cushioning; a paradigm shift requires guts. Guts that businessman of 25 years, owner of Ispat exhibited, when he assigned his new 3500 sq. ft. plus office premises to architect Samira Rathod, to mould with her offbeat sensibilities of design, into his envisaged workplace.

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Her design has never been about conventionality. In fact, her design is more about a home-grown approach set amidst the multi-dimensional imagery of a personalised comfort zone. It could mean one thing now and another a moment later; devoid of fuss and frolic; yet tangible in its candid influence, quietly reaching out to a range of receptivity.

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What you see here is an office but appears more like an overly spacious den-kind-of work space – homely, warm, with a touch of quirkiness that proclaims its individuality. As if the designer wanted to repeatedly reinstate how she has accomplished this differentiation - in treatment, in material play, in spatial configuration, through distinctive touches of her signature furniture and products.

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The envelope in plywood follows a philharmonic path; the use of ply, veneer, frosted glass, composite marble, the pastiche effect on the walls and ceiling, beautifully exposed wood grains... call your attention, akin to different musical notes combining in an exquisite rhythm to constitute a symphony.  The imagery even extends to the actual placement of a large free-for-all conference-table with a central electric-point-access axis that simulates a large piano in a philharmonic orchestra!

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With the tectonics for the office following a design vocabulary that flirts with atypical material application and flaunts its mechanizations (butt joints, wood grains, floor joints, overlaps, etc) in a aesthetic born of function, it is ultimately about sensitizing the soul to the comfort level it seeks and feels satiated with. Only, Samira has, in this attempt at wrapping the office into something else that is effectively un-office like yet respects the hierarchy of the conventional office, kind of teed off towards the excessive. A little more subtlety, reminiscent of her earlier examples of restraint, could perhaps have evolved into a more diametrically evolved effort. 

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