Bhansali Kunj

What you are looking at

The images here are 3D visualisations, not photographs. All three cover one room: a study planned for two people working at the same time.

Seen from the doorway the room is long and narrow. A stone worktop in grey-veined marble runs the length of the right-hand wall. It turns under a timber-framed window at the far end. A grey dual roller blind controls the glare there. Teal base cabinets sit below it. Above it sits a lit teal shelf on a band of stone cladding. Then comes a row of glossy teal wall cabinets, lit from underneath. The facing wall carries a grid of nine framed abstract prints in blue and cream. The floor is white marble.

The second view shows the room straight on. It explains the plan: two mirrored bays, each with its own cabinets, shelf and worktop. A full-height fluted panel in pale timber divides the two bays. Above them is a battened ceiling with recessed linear lights. The third image moves in close on one bay. It shows a brass desk lamp, an aloe in a concrete pot, books and two screens. A pair of mesh task chairs completes the scene.

The moves

The room is planned as two workstations, not one desk and a spare chair. The rest of the plan follows from that. Two people working in the same room need not to be looking at each other. So the desks sit side by side along one wall. The mirrored second bay gives each person a defined edge. The fluted panel between them is the only vertical element in the room. That is why it reads as a division, not decoration.

Storage is drawn to the ceiling and hung off the wall. Nothing stands on the floor, so a narrow plan keeps its width. Light is layered rather than pooled. Linear light in the ceiling covers the room. Concealed strips under the shelf and wall cabinets light the worktop. Daylight comes from the single window at the end. A dual blind filters it, so a screen can face the window without glare.

Colour does the last of the work. One saturated teal does the work, against white walls, white marble and pale timber. It is the only colour in the room.

Why we design this way

We settle the plan before the palette. Where people sit, where daylight comes from and where things are stored are decided first. The finishes are chosen afterwards, to serve them. A study is the room in a home where that order matters most. A working desk exposes bad daylight and thin storage within a week of moving in. The same order drives our approach to home renovation in Bangalore. A survey of what is already there comes before any drawing.

Every Aalekh interior is drawn, visualised in 3D and reviewed by Ar. Pooja Kothari before fit-out begins. See the rest of our renovation work, or read how we approach interior design in Bangalore.