(Humanizing the residential interiors)
(Indian Express Pune Newsline 25th June 2005)

By Ar. Shubhada Kamalapurkar and Ar. Atul Manohar.

How hard do you find searching for the washed socks in the morning?
Do you spend a lot of time searching for your keys & helmet while just leaving for your office?
Of course this is not an article about forgetfulness or good habits; actually it’s absolutely human to be in such small problems. Today’s lifestyle asks for a lot of organization of personal life and personal spaces.
The interior designers today have to think of all such finer elements of human life before designing any residential spaces.
Designers allover the world, are talking about humanizing the products, residential rooms and the furniture within. Better understanding of the busy daily routine, user specific requirements, the behavioral patterns have to be studied to design User Friendly interior spaces.

Optimized use of space:
Interiors is no more carpenters domain but is day by day demanding tremendous inputs and integration of many agencies and consultants to make your homes more efficient and comfortable. On the other hand we have prices of flats hiking and space becoming more valuable, where every inch of space is of major concern to us. Homes in urban areas are of varying sizes ranging from 450 sft small flat to 2500 sft flat or a penthouse.
Whatever the size of the home, all the activities are to be mapped on the space available..
At times 450 sft flat is enough for a family of husband + wife + 2 kids while a penthouse of 2500 sft +1000 terrace is not enough for a family of 2+2..
In whichever the case, Efficient and optimum use of space is the key to feel your home look big and the most wanted place to be in; a place filled with peace and love, especially when you come home tired from the offices.

Technology Ready Homes:
Designing places for keeping the frequently needed medicines near the bed, making this space more accessible and visible; would enable the grandfather to take the medicines in time. Making special arrangement for keeping the washed socks within the shoe rack; at least gives a strong reason to not forgetting the placement of socks and so on.
Actually the residential furniture could surely add to a lot of organization in the user’s life.
A lot of times after the house is being done up, we start thinking of the latest technical trends, gadgets to be fitted in the house. Gas geyser, 29” TV, Inverters, Computers, Dish washers, & all kinds of gadgets are absolutely needed for today’s techy lifestyle. Their placements, their installation problems, & inter dependence on other services like plumbing, electrical systems in the house that the builder has built are quite complex.
Interior designers have to look into all such requirements much before starting the real furniture work. If these come into the picture at a later stage, things will have to change, broken, modified; & that’s pretty expensive. Actually the design process has to be more systematic to take care of all such factors into consideration at the concept stage itself.
The needs in the house are also changing fast. The new concepts of Small office or working place within the house are also becoming very popular.
In such situations, multipurpose units of furniture can add to the usability of the furniture. When the space is scarce, and you need to fit in all of the daily needs in the same space, this flexibility surely is a plus point.

When is the best time to meet the Interior Designer?
Actually 90% of ground work on the paper & only 10% of execution time is told to be the success of the Japanese industries. Interior designers must spend a lot of time on the paper & then the execution time could really shrink. The best time to visit the Interior designers’ office is when you book a flat & the possession date is 6 months later.
Designers can in that case easily plan for the services, specific requirements accordingly.
The best time to really start thinking of making interiors is when you have bought your flat and it is under construction. You can talk to the builder and modify it to suit your needs and at times eliminate unnecessary walls so that the space starts looking big right from that stage. 6” internal walls can be replaced by furniture units accessible from one or two sides of the room. These can act as space dividers and can add to the quality of that space rather than having dead walls. Thinking of it right now will save your time and cost both as knocking the walls is quite a task.
Second is list all the requirements for all the rooms. Try to keep that list as minimum as possible and ask yourself, do you really want this piece of furniture? Go for multipurpose furniture. This is key to making your house look really spacious though your flat might be really small .It will again reduce your costs.
Preplan for gas geyser /solar heaters, inverters, sound systems and detachable speakers, service toilets / service sinks.
Use corners of the rooms effectively as also the space/shelves near the toilets.
Also important is thinking about which furniture can be inbuilt / immovable and which you want movable or do you want a mix of two for your room so that multiple arrangements/ layouts  for that room is possible to give your room a new look every time you move your furniture.
Communicate all your ideas of your home to the designer so that it can help him give you your dream home.

Design & make variations on the paper not in reality!!

Design of Furniture Units
Variety of materials keep on coming in the market.  Designers & specialists have an update of the flooring, wall covering, ceilings, tapestry, finishes & materials.
Now-a-day’s iron furniture with excellent long lasting finishes is also available. Go for it looks lighter and sleeker than wooden piece of furniture. Glass, stained glass, glass blocks can be used to make the space visually expandable.
Use that piece of furniture to the optimum e.g. A shoe rack can have seating at the top so that you don’t have to go sit on the sofa and wear your shoes.
Try to make your furniture as simple and as less as possible. Try to be as low as possible to make the space bigger. Stress on horizontality rather than verticality.
Go for low level sofas and Indian seating for your living rooms. Indian seating can have storage below so that the space underneath is well utilized.
The partition in between the living and dining can also act as a space divider as well as store /display unit. At times if the room space is really small it can be accessible from both sides and have a foldable dining table a part of it.
Use curtain and similar to divide spaces. Now a days you get variety in curtains giving at times the necessary transparency to make your space look large.
Use mirrors and light colors to enlarge or double your space.

Materials and finishes
Style definition generally comes with the choice of materials & finishes. Checkout the latest coffee shops coming up in all metros. Metallic finishes, & orange & bright blues are dominating the style horizons. Actually all the interior styles are catching on the “young look” suddenly the age of the public interiors has started looking younger & vibrant.
Some years back, residential interiors used to be classic, where wooden finishes used to dominate. Today the new generation colors & finishes have taken over the residential spaces also.
These are very important elements as your furniture piece and your interiors can look good and pleasant only when you make right decisions of finishes and use right materials.
Spaces can look big or small, dull or bright/ cheerful, elegant or rustic. Decide what kind of theme or mood you wish to generate for your room and accordingly decide the finishes for your room.
Use of natural stone in interiors like Jaisalmer can really add to the ambience of your room and make it look richer. Bright colors are currently in trend and they make spaces look more cheerful may it be orange and blues or yellows and greens.
Computer generated colors are possible and you can get the right shade of your desire. Textural effects to walls and furniture is also possible. In trend are star light effects for your ceilings, flowers and crazy textures for your walls possible with variety of roller brushes and advanced technology. Go for long lasting finishes and those which require least maintenance.

Lighting and other accessories
The house becomes a home with the objects of your liking, taste & style. The interior accessories can give the finishing touches to this style statement the designer has perceived.
Let it be the large LCD wall clocks for the techy look, or the historical artifacts for the ethnic look; these accessories add to the style domain.
Modern paintings, Classic sculptures, Rustic furniture (at times very low on utility) can surely be chosen for defining your lifestyle idols.
All objects in the room are seen in light, whether it be natural or artificial. During the day try to get in as much light in the room as possible by using semi- transparent curtains and light colors in the room so that the light is reflected and spread.
We need various light intensity levels for various activities like reading, cooking & sleeping. Make use of different sources of light like spot lights, CFL’s with reflectors to get right quality of light during night times.
Live plants, swift movement of fishes in the fish tank, rippling water fountains /cascades, certainly add to the human dimension of the space. 

And last but not  the least use painting, sculptures, plants to make your living space more humane and close to Art and Nature.

We are going away from it, aren’t we???