Home is where the office is

With the pandemic prompting a sea change in how we live and work, Indian homes are undergoing a transformation and interiors experts are rising to the challenge

After the lull comes the storm. While architects and interior designers found themselves twiddling their thumbs due to the unavailability of staff and material during the lockdown, a drop in infections spurred a wave of hope and spending. Sonali Ashar, founder of Hacienda Interior Architects, says home owners who had been waiting to do up their homes, went all out. However, she noticed a change. The requests for structural and aesthetic changes weren’t run of the mill. Conscious consumers are keen to use materials that help with safety and hygiene and fuse architecture with technology for a touchless experience. “We have begun to notice the impact of different accents in the spaces around us. 

Suddenly, thresholds have come into focus. I was servicing a client at Carmichael Road, who decided that she did not want footwear inside the house anymore. So, we created a floor-to-ceiling, wall-to wall-closet with panelling right outside the main door where all the footwear could be neatly stashed. She had not bothered about this detail when I had done up her home many years ago,” Ashar adds. 

Sonali Ashar, founder of Hacienda Interior Architects, created a floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall closet outside the main door of a South Mumbai residence since the client did not want any footwear to enter the house following the focus on hygiene post-pandemic. Pic/Bipin Kokate

With COVID-19 forcing us out of the office and making everyone spend longer hours at home, people have had to adapt and make the most of corners of the home. Soon, the home office is not going to be a makeshift workspace, but a well thought out area of the home. “The home office is here to stay. Right from creating sufficient storage space to the use of stylish and ergonomically functional chairs meant for long hours of use, lighting that’s kinder on the eyes, we are noticing a sea change in client requirements.” Purposefully designed hubs offering ‘silent zones’ for Zoom meetings and remote schooling are now a thing. “This has led to carving out a dedicated space with boundaries, and using sound-proof doors that help achieve ‘deep work’. Builders now tell us that they wish to offer home buyers a built-in gym and home office too. Until the pandemic, gyms were restricted to second homes in beach towns.” Similarly, kitchens are being envisioned with larger islands where cooking and happy interactionscan take place. 

Experts say it’s not uncommon for pandemics to leave a mark on home design. During the cholera outbreak in 19th century-London, certain textiles came under the scanner for their ability to collect germs, so  fussy upholstery and wall-to-wall carpets, found to be a breeding ground for dust and disease, were replaced with smoother fabrics. In an interview with American public radio NPR, infectious disease expert Elizabeth Yuko talks about how the concept of the second bathroom on the ground floor became legitimate after the 1918 flu epidemic. 

Interior designer Smitha Zachariah says people are seeking more greenery inside their homes. Microgreen gardens and vertical patches are common requests now

“The idea here was that because you were getting daily deliveries of things like ice and coal, you had this delivery person who was traipsing around your neighbourhood, going into all of your neighbours’ homes, picking up who knows what type of diseases and then coming into your home. So if this person needed to wash their hands or use the restroom while in your home, they could do so right on the ground floor without having to go up the stairs and use the family’s personal 
bathroom and spread germs up there,” she says. According to Ashar, bathrooms with open-to-sky ceilings wherever possible to allow for natural light to filter in, are gaining fans.

Experts say the use of copper and brass in faucets, door handles, and cabinet knobs—spots that are frequently touched—are becoming popular. “Automation is big today as people want to minimise door pulls and touch points,” adds Ashar.   

Disha Bhavsar, Shivani Ajmera and Smitha Zachariah

In the new normal, multi-functionality has become key to design, think Disha Bhavsar and Shivani Ajmera, principal designers and co-founders, Quirk Studio. “Every space and every piece of furniture is being thought through more critically because it is now being used not by one person but multiple end-users, all of whom use it differently. The bedrooms are used as workspaces, and the living room becomes a yoga room when needed. Even now when the cities have started to open up, the hybrid work model seems here to stay. Hence, it is essential that all elements of a home are multi-functionally adaptable.”

That living spaces influence our physical health and emotional well-being is pushing design experts to come up with ways to stimulate our senses. Zachariah says the idea to bring the outside inside is high on a client’s priority list. “I suppose this has been brought on by the two lockdowns and people not being able to go out of their homes for weeks on end. Microgreen gardens and vertical plant patches are being requested for regularly.”

This is so you!

With home owners keen on incorporating their personality into their home decor, interior designer Smitha Zachariah launched Create, a service that is geography agnostic. “All you do is fill in a detailed form online with responses that indicate your preferences and personality type. We then share the responses with a social psychologist and you get your ‘design in a box’ with elevations, colours and technical drawings. Create let’s you design anything from a small room to an entire space.” 

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