The Hilton House, a snug 1 BHK designed for a young couple in Mumbai is a beautiful mélange of rustic Indian aesthetics with contemporary styling. The clients being fans of the country life and living in tune with the natural elements, we at The Design Chapel wanted to give a more earthy feel to their house. Our intention was not to confer to trends but to create a design that can be germane for the space and can be timeless. A house that can reflect their personality, liking and desires.
Project Name – The Hilton House
Studio name – The Design Chapel
Location – Mumbai, India
Carpet Area – 650 sqft
Project year – March 2020
Photography – Biju Gopal, Bizou Photos
The clients wanted something organic, inspired by nature. Hence conceptually we decided to go ahead with materials like exposed clay bricks, a lot of natural wood and textures reminiscent of natural stones. The focus was to make this space a green sanctuary for the well-travelled couple’s spontaneous lifestyle. A space which would give them peace of mind, after a long day at work.
A very real challenge for any interior designer working with a 1bhk in Mumbai is to make the space feel expansive. Since the house was supposed to be only for a young couple, our main aim was to knock down walls and interconnect spaces so that they flow into one another visually as well as physically. The wall between the living room and the kitchen was given away to replace it with a kitchen counter and a breakfast table which also doubles up as a dining table and a bar counter with high back stools. This allowed the eye to travel through the kitchen and the passage without any obstacle and instantly made the house feel twice its original size.
The site had a blessing in the form of huge windows with ample light coming in from them which allowed us to go with matt grey flooring. This Kota stone like grey tile gave the house instant warmth. The long wall in the living room was cladded with clay brick tiles and the much loved guitar of the client found a place of pride on this wall. We embraced the colors of India and worked on tying multiple colors into the space, still making the home look unified and organized. The contrast of the exposed brick wall against the teal blue kitchen tiles, yellow sofa fabric and colorful cushions against the grey of the flooring added a touch of coziness and rustic warmth to the interiors.
On the other hand the bedroom was mostly kept white with a hint of blue with teak wood furniture. The bedroom was made into a zen like, meditative space which would light up with the first rays of the morning sun coming in through the large windows. The star of the house according to the owners though is the washroom. We combined the 2 smaller washrooms to create a bigger space and made it look more spacious by adding mirrors. The textured, patterned tiles used along with a solid stone basin and wooden grained laminate gave the washroom a pastoral aesthetic.
The carpets, rugs, cushions, paintings and artefacts all have been selected keeping the traditional Indian aesthetic in mind but we have tried to use it in a fresher and a more contemporary way. Pops of colors have been added with mustard yellow and royal blue in the soft furnishings, and the 2 beautiful hand crafted teak wood bar stools with its grains polished to perfection were a great find. The clients are avid wildlife photographers and work actively towards the preservation of the tiger population in India. We wanted to pay a homage to this and hence used one of their photographs as the main focal point of the living room. Our effort was to make the entire design detail oriented.
Our thought process while designing was extremely simple but we strived to create a profound experience with this house as we truly believe that we humans need to demand the best from all our living environments.
About The Design Chapel
The Design Chapel is a multidisciplinary design studio which creates inspired works in the fields of Interior Design, Architecture and Art. The motto of their design practice is to create and curate bespoke spaces which touch, move and inspire its occupants.
They are passionate about creating spaces which are thoughtfully designed, beautifully crafted and artistically inclined. Through a continuous and careful dialogue with structure, details, art, material and order, they seek a holistic and tectonic approach in realizing design ideas.
Preshita Shah Gupta the founder of The Design Chapel is an alumini of the Centre of Environmental Planning and Technology, (C.E.P.T University), Ahmedabad. She graduated from the School of Interior Design (SID) with a Bachelor’s degree in Interior Architecture and was awarded the Vastu Shilpa Foundation Award for the best graduating student from the University.
She was also awarded the Baden- Wuttemburg Scholarship to study design at the Hochschule Fur Technik (HFT), University of Applied Sciences Stuttgart, Germany.
Being an accomplished artist and painter herself, Preshita operates on the philosophy that Design is about engaging the audience and the user in an empathetic story telling. She believes that built form and interiors are always evolving and it is important to adapt to the present and design for the future.
