Designed for a young couple Mr Vivek and Aditi Bali, The Bali Residence is a minimalistic apartment that combines casual living with Eastern European aesthetics.
For our studio this project has been a great exercise in establishing a strong clear design concept and then following it through to create a pertinent spatial aesthetics. When the clients approached The Design Chapel for the complete overhaul of their newly bought 2BHK residence, a conceptual and a contextual design process was explored where every decision gets governed by a robust underlying design language. The clients being fans of the school of Modernism and having travelled to Northern and Eastern Europe were great admirers of the Scandinavian Aesthetic. We therefore decided to bring Norway to their doorstep.
Scandinavian aesthetics are defined by simplicity of form and importance to functionality with a clean, bold, fuss free design semantic. The focus was to make this space a haven for the well-travelled couple’s spontaneous lifestyle, with friends dropping in for cocktails, easy, lazy weekends or quiet evenings.
Our idea was to make the tight spaces in the 2BHK look spacious and open by using a uniform colour palette which envelopes the entire house. This made the house into a calming sanctuary where occupants feel relaxed and at ease. The colour palette associated with the Scandinavian style includes hues of white, greys, browns and blacks. Grey flooring runs throughout the house tying the whole space together. Pops of colours have been added with mustard yellow and sea green in the soft furnishings while teal blue is the highlight colour which appears in the wallpaper, cushioning, curtains and artwork. The 2 bathrooms and the kitchen are bold spaces with black and white subway tiles, black granite counters and glossy laminates taking one straight to an east European Airbnb. This decision to keep all 3 functional spaces purely black and white, made us take the idea of monochrome living to its fullest. The ample use of mirrors reflects the small space creating illusions and depth.
The neutral palette that is used throughout the house keeps the interiors subtle and tasteful. Materials like pine and birch wood, pale colours like white, teal and grey with lean, leggy furniture makes the room look expansive allowing ample amount of light to flow through and reflect. Artificial lighting has been integrated using modern elements like geometric pendant lamps and free standing dome lights. A beautiful hand crafted teak wood dining table with its grains polished to perfection was designed and made on site with dining chairs made specifically to suit the client’s ergonomic requirements.
Scandinavian aesthetics does not include a lot of patterns except a few geometrical ones and encourages lack of fuss and open, clean designed interiors which one will not grow tired of. Following the mantra of ‘Less is More’ we managed to make the space look less cluttered and more visually relaxing. This residence is full of small cozy corners to curl up with a cup of coffee on rainy evenings and spaces where one can de-stress, watch Netflix and chill after a long day at work.
