Surprisingly, the most obscure functional piece of home technology was the starting point for the team’s design – the air conditioner! While Shroff laments that he doesn’t like anything about it because it “just makes a room look ugly,” León explains, “These are large, everyday objects designed for a practical purpose – they can completely ruin the look of a room, so we always find a way to hide them seamlessly first. You won’t see them Photoshopped out in these pictures because we don’t build our homes for pictures!”
Other optical illusions included the entryway, which broke up the linearity of the otherwise long and narrow living room and gave it proportion, and the fact that the adjoining dining room was set a step lower to create a visual division. And there’s a unique combination of materials, colours and textures that create silent stories of layers in each room. “After over a decade of practice, we’ve developed our own language to create these distinct juxtapositions, such as smooth against rough or white against silver. We only select natural pieces for their inherent variations that tell their own unique story,” says Shroff.
The most striking element that plays with materiality can be found on the wall installation in the dining room, where molten metal seeps through dark wooden panels, its syrupy drops frozen against the rough grain of the raw wood. “We found old pieces of driftwood with holes in them and poured aluminum on them. Some of the liquid ran through the wood, some remained on the surface – and even took up an entire board. The process was controllable, but the final product was not. We’ve wanted to do this for some time and now we’ve finally found the perfect place to do it,” says León.
Buildings around the bones
The house featured several niches in the walls between the protruding pillars that supported the structure, but “instead of covering them up, we designed functional elements around them,” says the duo, pointing to the multipurpose shelf behind the bed in the master bedroom. “The dark grey panelled headboard covers the entire height of the wall behind the bed, is bordered by a metal strip and continues into the recesses of the niche where the wood panelling is fitted, making it almost look like it is pushing the room inwards,” describes Shroff. Similarly, the marble skirting board on the other side of the room was raised to a higher height until it meets a metal band with inlay that separates it from the rest of the wood-panelled wall.
Looking back on the project and reliving the years of working with the family, it feels “special!” exclaims the couple. “Even though they ultimately let us do our own thing on this project, it was also because together we spoke the same design language that we developed over the course of working on all of their spaces.”
Styled by: Jasmine Javeri
Read more: Pune: A 90 square meter old apartment converted into an office lives on art and rusticity
Read more: An art collector’s sleepy sanctuary in Delhi is a mix of beautiful colors
Read more: This minimalist house in Mumbai also serves as an art gallery
