Perched at Mumbai’s iconic Malabar Hill, overlooking the Hanging Gardens, this residence unfolds as a home designed for a family of five. Though part of a larger home, this was envisioned to function seamlessly as a self-contained apartment, embodying both utility and spirited modernity.
At its heart, the design narrative is defined by bold colour, hidden functionality, and structural rethinking. The client, an aesthete with a maximalist love for hues, insisted on colour-coding every bedroom and bringing vibrancy into every corner. The challenge for the design team lay in balancing this saturation with elegance, ensuring that spaces felt expansive despite the client’s uncompromising need for abundant storage. The solution came in the form of concealed cabinetry, custom-built furniture, and a careful orchestration of textures and tones that keep the interiors from tipping into excess.
The social core of the home is a dramatically opened-up plan where the kitchen, dining, and living areas merge into one fluid zone. Structural walls were reconfigured to relocate the kitchen, allowing natural light to permeate deeper into the space. A mirrored dining wall amplifies brightness and dimension, complemented by sculptural light installations sourced from emerging Indian designers. The palette here is eclectic yet harmonised: pastel rusts, copper, peach, blue, and muted pinks flow into each other with a controlled vibrancy, punctuated by accents like an audacious orange carpet and statement artworks.
In the living area, Italian-imported sofas and dining furniture coexist with bespoke, in-house pieces. A fluted accent wall, layered in varying profiles, lends architectural depth without overwhelming the senses. Custom consoles and credenzas, crafted in whimsical shades of powder blue and peach with freehand wooden detailing, anchor the foyer, embodying the dialogue between playful experimentation and high-end refinement.
Every corner bears a curatorial touch: shelving units designed as slim, linear inserts rather than bulky displays; a hand-embroidered art piece near the entrance chosen for its emotional resonance rather than chromatic harmony; and lighting re-engineered in scale and proportion to sit perfectly within the home’s volumes. These details make the home a place of constant discovery, where each visit reveals something new.
The den, designed entirely to the husband’s brief, offers a dramatic counterpoint. Originally envisioned in an uncompromising all-black scheme, it was moderated through collaborative design into a rich interplay of black, greys, and sharp orange accents. The space is anchored by a 100-inch television wall and an artwork sourced internationally; its palette subtly echoed in the furnishings and floor covering. The result is a cinematic retreat with bold personality, yet tempered to remain liveable.
Bathrooms also reflect the home’s ethos of colour as an architectural medium. The powder room becomes a jewel-box of multi-hued fluted walls, where artisanal precision transforms compactness into delight. The den’s bath extends the experimentation further with a collage of marble and tile fragments, wrought iron shelving, embedded mirrors, and sculptural lighting, a seemingly spontaneous composition, but one requiring immense craft to execute seamlessly.
Throughout, the materiality signals understated luxury. Green marble surfaces, fine veneers, PU-coated furniture, and textured plaster finishes anchor the interiors in high-end detail. While the family sourced select statement pieces from Europe, the project foregrounds Indian craftsmanship, lights by emerging designers, custom beds and cabinetry built in-house, and artisanal accents that elevate utility into artistry.
Le Nexus reflects the negotiation of two strong design philosophies: the client’s exuberant love for colour and detail, and the designer's instinct for restraint and spatial clarity. The synthesis results in a residence that is as bold as it is refined, a layered environment where colour, texture, and storage coalesce into a lived-in yet distinctly curated expression of modern family life at Malabar Hill in Mumbai.
Team:
Design Firm: Rutam Intarch
Designer: Sheffalie Jhaveri
Photography: Kuber Shah
Stylist (optional): In-House
Materials Used:
Tapestry from Fabrics and cottons &satins
Knobs and Handle -Mantara
Lights -Jadelights Emanate Kumarlamps
Sanitary ware -KOHLER VBCL GESSI
Furniture’s - Rutam.IntArch theclosetcompany
Tiles - Cambay Tiles
Marble- QualityMARBLE KKMarble
