Design is not just the art of being beautiful – Swati Shah
“The key to great design is capturing the spirit of the client and the essence of the space”, quotes Swati Shah, Architect and dreamer with over 2 decades of experience in the industry. Over the years, Swati has developed a keen eye for creating awe-inspiring spaces. She takes pride in her ability to transform spaces by bringing ideas and inspiration to life. She is also adept in finding creative ways to help budget conscious clients design their dream spaces.
Swati’s mission is to create interior spaces with a fresh perspective that uniquely reflects the clients’ personality and desire. The result enables each individual’s style to emerge into a design that will inspire and promote their well being. Experienced in both traditional and contemporary interiors, she is able to translate any style to fit the need of an assortment. Her personal design style consists of a balance of natural, vintage and modern materials. In her previous role as an associate interior designer with Architect Nina Puri, in Mumbai, she led large scale, high end residential projects. Now Swati leads as a designer at S. S. Designs, and has started taking up varied new exciting projects.
One such project was The Beer Cafe at Mumbai. Beer café was already a young successful brand which had several outlets in Delhi when the clients approached SS Designs. With such existing brands Swati feels people already have a perception about it and they relate it or with either a certain color palette or design. Same was the case with Beer Café, this was not only a boon but also one of the challenges they faced while designing two outlets of this brand. They wanted to maintain the integrity of the brand but at the same time play with a bit of design to give it a new look.
Swati explains that, “Our challenge was to create a fresh look with the worn wall finish of exposed bricks. We teamed this finish with polished veneer and natural polished cement sheet thereby creating a new color palette for the space, which consisted of red bricks, grey cement sheet, deep wooden color of the veneer and pops of yellow from the brand logo. The client was particularly very happy with the Rope wall that we had created which also served as the highlight wall”.
Grey cement sheet background with ropes going across vertically and the lights falling on them from either side thereby creating a dramatic look. Like any other food outlet in Mumbai the space was a constraint, but that falls right in Swati’s forte, using each and every nook and corner to create and utilize space to its fullest. The areas were differentiated by change in materials like a change in the flooring to demarcate area for the regular dining and the bar.
Another interesting feature wall that they created was with the beer brand badges provided by the client to incorporate in the interiors. To keep the ambience casual and fun they had put up frames with quirky quotes on the wall and a bookshelf for the ones who want to read while they sip their brew. Also, they fabricated a beer bottle chandelier which made the space look more fascinating.
According to Swati, It is important to note and understand that design is not just the art of being beautiful, but it meets a combination of specific needs, and this is what is conveyed by her designs too.