An Elegant Surat Home with Patterened Floors

Located in Surat, Gujarat, this 3,300 sq.ft apartment belongs to the Khajanchi family. Designed by architectural firm, The Company of Design, the elegantly decorated home is a sight for sore eyes.

About the project:

Who lives here: Khajanchi family
Location : Surat, Gujarat
Carpet Area: 3300 sq.ft
Designed by : Niel Parekh, Pooja Shah, Devyani Minocha of The Company of Design
Completion year : 2018
Design aesthetic: Contemporary functional

Brief

The young couple wanted a contemporary functional house for their kids and parents. At the same time, the house needed to be a canvas to showcase the century old paintings and art pieces collected by several generations of their family.

The outcome of this brief is a open, well-lit house with a mind blowing bedroom. There are other elements that are worth mentioning as you progress through the pictures:  the wooden archways for the rooms, the abstract pattern in wood that doubles up as niches and shelves in the bedroom which is a contemporary artwork in itself, and the terrazzo + IPS flooring.

Living + Dining

Spatially, the house is divided into two: the social and the private areas. The social area comprises of the living, dining and the kitchen which flow seamless into one another. Each bedroom has a character of its own based on the user. you can see light bouncing off the ceilings and that tunnel light streaming in from the kitchen windows into the living through the partition.

The vastness of the open plan living room is amplified by the huge windows and the high ceilings. A liberal use of wood for furniture and that wood partition between the living and dining makes the space cosy. 

All the doorways from the main entrance to each of the rooms are shaped like archways in wood giving it an authentic old-world feel. The living room sports blue furnishings cladding customized sofas. The block printed bench extends the traditional footprint. Behind the wooden partition in the living room is the dining and an open kitchen. 

Heirloom art graces its walls

On one side of the living room is this 35 foot long exposed brick wall with hand printed tiles inserted in it.  Framed miniature paintings hang on this wall. It is safe to say that the design of this space is firmly rooted in heirloom artwork collected by the family over several generations. The art pieces and paintings have been reinterpreted in a modern setting — in an earthy colour palette with the brick wall serving as the backdrop.

Bedroom: Terrazzo + IPS Flooring

I have a thing for abstract art and patterns – the self-repeating kind that is mind numbing and yet is easy to replicate. This repeating zigzag pattern in black and white meets in perfect points like a string of carets giving the room mesmerizing symmetry. The elegance is elevated by laying this terrazzo flooring for three-quarters of the room while the other quarter is IPS flooring. It makes the eyes oscillate between the pattern and the plain flooring constantly.

The patterns inspired from the work of the artist Nigel Peake and the traditional artwork act as a binding vine between the old and the new, the contemporary and the traditional.

The material composition for the project is simple composed of concrete, wood, and exposed brick wall. The furniture is made in wood and brass as a nod to tradition but the executed in a modern minimalist way.

It has been rightly called as “Understated elegance” by the architects. There is a laid-back, relaxed feel to the house which is a testimony to a well-designed house.

Image Courtesy : Ishita Sitwala