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Journalism of Courage
There’s life beyond saas-bahu camaraderie. It’s called the nuclear spirit of togetherness, where you can watch your spouse flaunt his pancake-flipping skills from the living room.
With open plans moving from offices to homes, architects are bringing down walls and doors, making walking from one room to the other as easy as walking to the closet.
One to embrace the trend is Delhi-based architect Sonali Srivastava Rastogi. Selective about the homes she designs, the 35-year-old architect has just finished her own apartment in the capital city. The expanse of her house becomes apparent with the winding staircase that leads up to a well-waxed wooden floor. Cones of soft yellow light mark niches and utility spaces, with the art on the walls having been carefully chosen for the grand look.
‘‘Earlier, open plans were for offices. Now more and more residences are beginning to have open plans,’’ she says. And if you think you need a football field to work the Soho magic, think again. Rastogi and her ilk can make a small floor-size look bigger, feel comfortable, with minimal maintenance hassles. In fact, it’s the logic the moneyed are using for choosing smaller houses over the palatial.
| Have it, Flaunt it! |
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GO GREEN WITH A VENGEANCE: From having seen parental homes with lawns, the younger generation has moved out on its own into smaller spaces. But the desire for that green patch hasn’t died down. So, Feng Shui shoots aside, people are relying on plants in living rooms, bedrooms, lobbies and even bathrooms. |
Clean straight lines and functionality are the two mantras that Mumbai-based architect Hafeez Contractor also lives by. ‘‘The idea is to create free-flowing spaces,’’ he says. So just keep your bedroom and bathroom doors intact (for privacy, of course) and get rid of all the other barriers, proclaims Rastogi, who works with her husband Manit in their architecture firm Morphogenesis.
Which means an open kitchen too. ‘‘It needn’t be a damp, dark hole in the wall,’’ says another Delhi-based architect Dikshu Kukreja. Behind many a residential complex in Gurgaon, Kukreja believes the kitchen is no longer dominated by women. With even men discovering their culinary talent, it’s one space that needs dramatic improvisation.
And those peripheral spaces like guest rooms? ‘‘We are three to four decades ahead of a culture that had relatives coming and
living for months,’’ says Rastogi, explaining how clever furniture like a sofa-cum-bed can help accommodate those sleeping over occasionally. Entertaining business guests at home is also passé now. If someone’s so important, Rastogi would take him out to a fancy place, rather than block off space in her apartment for a rare fancy do. ‘‘Neither do my clients want to come home, nor do I want them over,’’ the architect chuckles.
Delhi-based filmmaker Sanjoy Roy and his wife, media and communication person Puneeta, have recently done up their house in the most amazing palate of hues. ‘‘We live in a double-storey house, with the ground floor a conventional mix of white and pales,’’ explains Puneeta Roy. ‘‘It was upstairs where Sanjoy freaked out with colours, experimenting with textures and patterns,’’ says Puneeta. So, while one wall in the house is orange with yellow stripes, the kids’ room has stripes in two shades of vibrant blue.
Very minimal and clean! ‘‘And nothing fits the bill better than modular furniture,’’ says Kukreja. Like the wall unit in your kid’s room — no chunky four-poster here (obviously not to accommodate the clutter, but to flaunt it).
