Flower Box

Compiled by Pari Syal

Photography: Courtesy the designers

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Little touches of philosophical Japanese ideologies and plenty of positive energy characterize the Flower Box flower boutique; perhaps a metaphor for the purport behind its function…

What’s so great about designing a flower shop, one would deride. Sentimental as we are, giving and receiving flowers, making for memorable moments in our lives, we hardly pay attention to the space that houses them. Aren’t they but to be stacked or dumped together…?

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Exactly a perception that is smashed to smithereens with the ‘Flower Box’ by designer-partners Farah Ahmed and Dhaval Shellugar of FADD Studio, Bangalore. Delineating the love and care that nurtures these natural beauties, the designers in tandem with their client, have proceeded to accomplish a dainty, quaint flower boutique, spread over a spacious 900 sq. ft., sticking religiously to the client brief – “make it simple, stunning and fast!”

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So in 28 days, an old ground floor space of 3 rooms plus parking was metamorphosed into one of FADD Studios best projects in their one-year old journey. Using a dominant paper-bamboo veneer ceiling installation translated from earthy concentric Zen garden circles, the ambience of the store is calm but attention-grapping in its softly shaded envelop of grey cement flooring and white-to-grey walls. The shelves and furniture in maple add to the shell of neutrality to allow its products to stand out.

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The facade of the shop is inspired by vermillion of the Japanese temple gates and fences, but is ingeniously used as horizontals on the entrance door glass and front facade. The retail display of the show window intrigues with swings and old oil measuring jars for the flowers; both delicately suspended by ropes, highlighting the importance of balance and stability of Ikebana.

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The same vocabulary continues with the display outside and the quaint landscaping, where the staff is urged to create concentric circles every day, just as the Japanese do in their homes as a spiritual practice.  A small Zen garden, ideally set for client interaction completes the picture.

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Juxtaposing the ideology of Ikebana (the Japanese art of flower arrangement with emphasis on shape, line and form) with visual inspirations from Japanese Zen gardens, the design of Flower Box represents minimalism in colour, balance in form, and harmony in shape.