Luxury lies in the making

Luxury lies in the making

What makes an unassuming piece of furniture high-end? five designers tell us about the backstage drama that makes their performance pieces a hit

 

1.Chandlo
BY DOSHI LEVIEN
The London-based husband and wife team of Jonathan Levien and Nipa Doshi have designed Chandlo, a dressing table inspired by the bindi as well as the moon.

Chandlo was created to make it appear that the elements are holding one another in position without actually touching. To hide the methods of construction from view, Doshi Levien invented a complex bracket arrangement that could be located under the table surface. The dressing table takes its name from the ancient Indian word for bindi, an essentially Indian adornment. “Chandlo celebrates the enjoyment of getting dressed and the importance of our daily well-being ritual,” says Levien. The geometric forms, materials and colours refer to the work of Bauhaus and De Stijl artists Hans Richter, Max Burchartz, Theo van Doesburg and El Lissitzky. Chandlo was part of Das Haus 2012, which is their model of a home in a 180 sq. m space at IMM Cologne (Internationale Möbelmesse, an international furnishing show in Cologne, Germany). Made by BD Barcelona, a Spanish design company, it can be ordered on www.bdbarcelona.com and shipped to India.
€5,000 (Approximately— around Rs. 3.25 lakh— excluding taxes)

2. Spike
BY SHAHID DATAWALA

The Spike coffee table plays on the principle of creating an illusion. Six hundred stainless steel rods and a reflective sheet are put together to create a curved effect, which in turn requires a degree of precision cutting and assembly. “It was a challenge in terms of cutting. The rods are screwed on the steel back and when they extend outwards, it creates a bending effect. This happens when a straight line is mounted on a reflective curved surface,” explains Datawala, head of design, Pallate Design Studio, Mumbai. His inspiration for the coffee table was a pin cushion and a sea urchin. Available at Pallate Design Studio, Mahalaxmi, Mumbai.
Rs. 98,900 

3.Deconstructed Throne
BY GUNJAN GUPTA

Gunjan Gupta’s vision as a designer is to put historical Indian craft in a contemporary mould. She believes in her signature sculptural style, but produces in batches to make her work more affordable. “That’s my idea of luxury today,” says Gupta. So she took the misunderstood wood sheesham, which is strong but coloured and not typically used in luxury furniture. “Sheesham is unpredictable, unlike uniform Burma teak. It doesn’t take well to polishing,” says Gupta. In her studio Wrap, Gupta arrived at a process of staining sheesham uniformly by matching the grain in one lot. Seven months in the making, the Deconstructed Throne is an extrapolation of her full-backed Dining Throne. The seat is upholstered in a gold and silver crescent pattern, much like the waxing and waning of the moon. Customization allows the six chairs to be designed to represent different phases of the moon.
Available at Wrap Art & Design, Mehrauli, New Delhi. For details, visit www.wrap.co.in
Rs. 30,000 (Per chair)

4.Charpoy
BY ALEX DAVIS

Alex Davis’ steel charpoy was created as a tribute to the quintessential cot of India, seen in homes, courtyards and under banyan trees—the centre of all community interaction. Made in high-grade stainless steel, it is completely hand-cut and woven much like a real charpoy, demanding much skill from the team of artisans at Davis’ design studio, Indi Store. Davis used sheet metal to create the interwoven surface and tube steel to create the legs, all fabricated separately and then put together. “This was created more as a statement piece. At some point, you do reach a threshold and cross over from functional design to art. By virtue of its complexity in production, it becomes the ultimate luxury,” reasons Davis. The charpoy is part of Davis’ collection called My Lazy Garden. Available at Indi Store, 143, Shahpur Jat, New Delhi.
Rs. 85,000 (approximately)

5.The Other Side
BY AJAY SHAH

Ajay Shah’s work desk was designed using a mild steel frame that supports a laminated glass-table surface. The challenge in its construction was that the structure is prefabricated in parts and then assembled. Each part, therefore, is produced using component drawings. Shah and his team made a full-scale model using paper and card to get a sense of proportion and the joinery details.“The normal perception of design is understood to be driven by form and colour because both are easily understood by a viewer. Function is also considered an important criteria, however, that’s a given. As I understand it, a form should be the outcome of a process, rather than being driven from a pure aesthetics viewpoint,” says Shah, who runs a design consulting firm in Mumbai.
The Other Side is built on the principle of mass- manufacturing techniques, even the flushed (the handle or groove with which a drawer is pulled) detail of the drawer becomes both an expression as well as a clean detail.
Available on order at Ajay Shah Design Studio, www.industrialplayground.net
Rs. 49,000