Project Type: 2 Bedroom Home
Total Super Built-Up Area: 1030 sqft
Project location: DNR Casablanca, Bangalore
Year of completion: 2022
Design firm: STUDIO ipsa (https://www.instagram.com/uandidesigns/)
Design lead: Khusbu Murarka https://www.instagram.com/murarkakhusbu/
Founder: Aniketh Bafna (https://www.instagram.com/anikethbafna/)
Principal designer: Sonal R Mutha (https://www.instagram.com/sonalrmutha/)
Photo credit: Nayan Soni (https://www.instagram.com/nayansoni21/)
Other credits:
- Living Room Floor Rug: https://www.instagram.com/rugberry/
- Living Room floor lamp: https://www.instagram.com/orangetreehomes/
- Living Room coffee table: https://www.instagram.com/ikiru.in/
- Living Room end table: https://www.instagram.com/ikiru.in/
- Living Room wall art above the green console: https://www.instagram.com/rutvajoshidesign/
- Living Room wall art behind the sofa: https://www.instagram.com/studioartemist/
- Living Room wallpaper behind the sofa: https://www.instagram.com/curtains_avenue/
- Fabric for curtains and upholstery throughout the house: https://www.instagram.com/homestoriesblr/
- Kitchen dado tiles: https://www.instagram.com/helloceramique/
- Master Room bedding set: https://www.instagram.com/studiocovers.co/
- Master Room floor runner: https://www.instagram.com/jaipurrugs/
- Study floor rug: https://www.instagram.com/jaipurrugs/
- Study wall art: https://instagram.com/aistudioblr/
PROJECT BRIEF
Tucked along a breezy avenue in one of Bangalore’s upscale residential neighbourhoods, ‘The House of Forms’ offers an eclectic take on the Japandi aesthetic.
A young couple with a penchant for organizing lively get-togethers, the owners envisioned a home where guests would feel pleasantly welcome and unconstrained. To that end, they wanted expansive spaces and uncluttered design that also reflected the easy-going warmth of their personalities.
Given the compactness of the house, we wanted to eschew stark geometries and sharp angles in favour of a more organic look and feel. Warm teak veneers rub up against raw concrete-textured paint to create rich naturalistic surfaces, while entryways, consoles, shelves and edges have curved elements to create a seamless sense of flow when moving from room to room.
Balanced use of colour was also a key priority – dappled through every space, shades of green, black, brown and white, create an interesting interplay with natural light and further heighten the sense of organic warmth.
From the Agra stone work in the dining room, to the custom armrest on the sofa, and the arched crockery cabinets, it’s the little details that really draw out the elegance of this home. Instead of cluttering the space with artwork and accents, we strategically placed select statement pieces that give you a peek into the client’s personal aesthetic. The final result is a soft outpouring of warmth, character, and serenity that instantly puts every visitor at ease.
A Foyer For A Niche Crowd
Stroll through the front door and you’re confronted by a rounded rectangular niche that doubles as foyer seating, where you can comfortably pull your socks off. The niche is backed by grooved wooden panels, finished in teak laminate, and also features a trio of black circular coat pegs.
The foyer offers a prelude to the monochrome and teak palette evident in the rest of the home. The rounded corners of the niche, and the curve on the beam between foyer and dining area gives you a peek at how we’ve woven subtle contours into the decor.
We went with simple checks for the upholstery, alongside a houndstooth-patterned accent cushion to lend a understanded elegance to the space. For unobtrusive storage, we tucked in a narrow shoe cabinet below the foyer seat, as well as a tall, vertical cupboard hidden behind a wall panel.
As you leave the foyer the wall gently curves away and opens into the dining area.
Dining In Eclectic Style
In the dining room you’re greeted by a Scandinavian-style dining table and a gorgeous decorative amphora in deep cobalt. Given that space was at a premium in this room, we had to customize the entire dining ensemble in terms of dimension and design. Conceptualized, built, and shipped out from our in-house furniture studio, the table top is made from a single slab of polished quartz, and is enclosed by a set of wooden chairs and a bench upholstered in a rich chevron-patterned blue.
The sweeping curves of a sage green console occupy the nearest wall, as do a set of stone art squares that depict rustic architectural elements from the Malabar region. Each was custom carved from Agra red stone to showcase the client’s personality and their family heritage in Kerala. On the other side of the room, we installed a crockery unit with three arched niches in keeping with the curvaceous elements seen throughout the house.
An open shelving unit, with wooden beading around the arch, sits right the center and a pair of cabinets with ribbed glass shutters form up on either side. To capture the feeling of a natural rock niche, we textured the insides of the upper storage units in the same raw concrete paint we used on the walls. And to eliminate extraneous clutter, three teak-finished cabinets have been positioned right below the crockery shelves.
Living The Japandi Life
The living room is a celebration of light and muted colour, featuring rich tones of grey dappled with organic accents. Large windows offer plenty of natural illumination, and are wrapped in a blend of sheer and solid gray curtains to create an abiding sense of continuity with the concrete texture paint.
Enrobed in smoky suede, a 3-seater sofa sits on a beveled edge base and comes with a customized teak armrest that curves into a low shelf. Behind the sofa, another recessed niche layered with a simple, checked wallpaper creates an interesting design echo of the foyer. A series of graphic prints capturing archways in abstract serve to drive home the curved aesthetic of the space. This entire ensemble is flanked by a metal Scandinavian lamp with a rattan shade, and a gorgeous asian bell tree that is ensconced in the corner. The living room is also home to a trifecta of nested coffee tables with partially raised edges – these compete for attention with a striped navy-and white ottoman and a plush gray rug.
The TV console is a simple affair in curved teak, complemented by black hardware and black solid wood legs. Right above the console we mounted a double wall ledge with rounded edges on one side, and an integrated storage cabinet that includes a flip-up, rattan-fronted door.
Shaking It Up In The Kitchen
A rounded rectangular entryway off to the left of the dining area opens into the kitchen. Too often, cosy kitchens end up with lots of visible clutter and crowded shelves. To offset this we took a leaf from the Shaker-style, and used clean lines, and flat-paneled, veneer cabinets to create an open and expansive feel to the room. Open box shelves, with curved vertices, mirror the entryway and add an interesting break to the expanse of cabinetry.
Polished quartz makes a second appearance in the countertops, adding a soft gleam to the teak-and-white contrast of the cupboards. The client also wanted to incorporate a little colour into the kitchen, and we obliged with a set of sea-green subway tiles. We chose black sink and faucet hardware to minimize the contrast on the counter, while creating a pleasing silhouette against the vertical splashback tiles.
Modern Luxury Meets Mauve & Ivory
Enter the master bedroom via a quirkily arched doorway to see how the Japandi style can create a vision in muted elegance. Opposing walls are painted in deep opera mauve, and are paired with ivory furniture and teak accents. The bed itself is mounted on a custom wooden frame with integrated storage cabinets, and a plush, double-paneled upholstered headboard framed by curved piping.
On an otherwise empty expanse of wall, we installed a series of grooved, mauve panels creating a textural and tonal contrast to the ivory cream of the headboard and bedside tables. The long-handled alabaster wardrobes create a similar effect, and alongside the velvet mauve curtains and the dark teak flooring evoke an unmistakable sense of modern luxury. Right next to the entryway, we placed a mirror frame with carved concave bezeling to gently add an organic touch to the space.
Opposite the bed, a wall-mounted chest of drawers, in ivory, sits adjacent to a floating teak study table, complete with an integrated drawer and a classic spindleback chair. And above the desk, mauve wall beading traces a contour around a slim black metal ledge, angling downward as it meets the edge of the doorway.
A Room Like A Warm Hug
The guest bedroom was intended to double as a study, a leisure room, and a puja space. Given its compact size, and multiple functions, this room was a considerable challenge to design and decorate.
Since a traditional bed wouldn’t comfortably fit into the space, we custom-designed a sage green velour sofa with a pull-out bed, maximizing the functionality and space in the room.
Curved gray walls form a concrete-textured envelope around a study table and a cosy window seat in the guest bedroom. The seat is upholstered in a classic houndstooth pattern, and also incorporates a set of storage drawers to make tidying-up that much easier.
Roman stripes on the blinds offer a nod to the striped floor rug and a simple contrast to the intricate jaali-work on the puja cupboard. Across from the window sits a solid wardrobe unit in sage green with wooden hardware to balance out the visual warmth in the room. As a final touch, we stacked a set of three open shelves, and tucked the unit into the corner between the window and the puja cupboard.
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