Homecoming is made up of emotional effusions. This is what a couple in their 50s and their young daughter experienced while shifting base from Singapore to Surat. A banking IT professional, a teacher, and an art historian and curator, the Upadhyays found their new home in Vesu, an emerging residential neighbourhood in Gujarat, and after much consideration, they chose architects Pooja Shah, Niel Parekh, and Tirth Patel of The Company of Design to lend a subtle sophistication to their modest fancies. “They are a family of readers,’’ Pooja tells me. “When the family decided to move back, they wanted a home that feels intimate but also accommodates social gatherings.’’ This initiated a process to create a space where extroverted bibliophiles find joy.
There’s an invigorating candour about the way the home is structured and styled. It effaces labels. There’s neither muted minimalism nor coated grandiloquence. It simply unpacks its dweller’s life journey. A result of their life in travels—from collecting memorabilia and souvenirs to packing a treasure trove of books, which now bedeck the Valsadi teak wood shelves. “A couple of avid readers who share a ubiquitous love for globetrotting, the client didn’t need special places of display for their collectibles; they wanted it to be spread around, in a way that everything becomes a part of the house itself,’’ shares Pooja. She adds, “For us, every project is a blank canvas where we strive to create a harmonious painting through the creative placement of paraphernalia’’. This is when both the client and the designers solidified a design language for this apartment in Surat.
As soon as you enter the Sangini Terraza apartment, spanning 2,000 square feet, an overarching theme of contrast ensues. The lacklustre concrete ceiling, the demure walls rendered in lime paint [“that also help keep the apartment cool’’], and the munificent Valsadi teak wood—all come together in a visual consonance. “This sense of juxtaposed coherence, using natural materials, creates the perfect neutral canvas for introducing splashes of colour, like the striking Jaipur Rugs that adorn the living room,’’ says Pooja.
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A similar symphony is visible in the dining area, which is a fluid extension of the living room. It is here that you see “a playful collection of curious forms’’. Next to the dining table is a hidden puja room with “an abstraction of the intricate carvings found in temples traditionally’’; it is inspired by the works of French woodworker Lucas Castex. The kitchen adds to this seamless conversation with a conspicuous black and white terrazzo breakfast bar supported on a steel I-section. As we move away from the common areas, Pooja introduces a private space that is “designed with focus in mind’’. The study, packed with ample storage and shelves, features a free-standing desk with an integrated totem pole. “The totem pole doubles as a lamp and a source of power, but it is also a pivot allowing flexibility to rotate and orient the desk,’’ shares Pooja. The two bedrooms are designed to offer respite from the frantic, restless pace of the everyday. With a built-in alcove in the master bedroom and a floating ledge next to a window in the daughter's bedroom, a serendipitous escape is just a compelling read away.
Reminiscing about the client’s brief, Pooja and the team designed this home to be a reader’s haven—warm, easy, energetic. Here, spatial intricacies follow comfort and ease—using natural materials in “a recognizable yet playful form’’ to achieve a sense of belonging. Alcoves, shelves, decorous nooks, and even art—everything exclaims nostalgia—a keeper of the past and a narrator of stories, this home in Vesu.