Lounge
Choose the right partner to build your home
Summary
When it comes to selecting an architect and interior designer, think like a matchmaker – match philosophies, timelines, personalities, lifestyles and, of course, budgetsSometime in 2009, my ex-husband and I were sitting in our friends’ car browsing through a German-French-English architecture coffee table book they’d just picked up. It was during that 30-minute car ride and the happenstance encounter with that book that we first came upon a project by architect Bijoy Jain’s Studio Mumbai. It was Palmyra House, a simple 3,000 sq. ft space fashioned out of two long, louvered wooden crate-like boxes, sitting in the middle of a coconut grove in Nandgaon, Maharashtra.
At the time we were thinking of building a home and had an eye open for potential architects. The process and ethos of the practice immediately spoke to us, and it was the first step in a long process of research and introspection over who should design the house that took us to Studio Mumbai. We’d eventually work with Jain, Belgian interior designer Axel Vervoordt and English landscape architect Tom Stuart-Smith. They each articulated our hopes for various aspects of the space and my ex-husband oversaw the actual construction. I’ve looked back upon those partnerships over the years, and particularly at how we, as clients, ended up working with three entities who turned out to be perfect for what we wanted and worked well with one another. If we’d chosen anyone else for any part of the process, then things would not only have looked different, it would have felt woefully different.
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Given my own experience of these relationships and the process of home building, I’m often surprised by how nonchalant people are when it comes to selecting an architect and interior designer. Many don’t realise just how intimate this association will become over the course of creating a space, which makes it essential that all entities are perfectly at ease with one another. The closest I can compare it to is a woman’s relationship with her gynaecologist.
Think like a matchmaker, match philosophies, timelines, personalities, lifestyles, and of course, budgets. Social media imagery, magazine write-ups, budgetary considerations, no factor in exclusion should make the choice. Read up on the architect or designer, and if possible, visit older sites and search out real-experience reviews from people who have been clients. Studio Mumbai, for instance, has long lead times for projects; it is a necessary after effect of the iterative process that Jain follows. For most people that would have been a problem but for us, when Jain said the project would take at least three years, we believed in his practice enough to still want to engage with it. This is why it becomes so important to align value systems.
Clients, put broadly, either know what they want or don’t know what they want. The ones who do know are usually looking for someone who will execute their schema. Those are people who look at the design process simply as a service. Instead, look at it as an opportunity for self-reflection and education. Understanding what you want, why you want it, the financial ramifications of those choices, the conditions of the place where you’re likely to make your home—there are so many aspects, both philosophical and practical, that are worth understanding, even before you meet a designer. You can only select the right person to create your space if you try to understand why you want what you want.
Interior designer Sarah Sham of Mumbai-based Essajees Atelier has a question that clients ought to ask themselves once they meet a potential designer or architect: Are energies aligned? She says, “Instead of just looking for the cheapest option, also consider whether you like them. Sometimes you see clients with designers who are just shouting them down, and it’s not a fun experience. Similarly, you don’t want a rude client who doesn’t understand your process or aesthetic. It is a much more intimate relationship than people realise so it’s important that energies are aligned."
Sham’s firm is prolific and has grown from a one-woman business to a 30-person firm in under 10 years. Her firm is currently working on 35 projects both in India and abroad, that’s more than 35 clients and families all at once. The Essajees Atelier relationship with a new client begins with a questionnaire, which queries them on everything from their travel preferences to dining habits. “It is essential for us to learn about them as much as possible. As we progress, and by the time we get to the end of a project we get to know everything, from the status of their marital relationship, to how they sleep, how they use the bathroom, their relationships with their kids... We get to know the deepest parts of you that someone who knows you for 10 years may not even get to see."
The questionnaire is a great tool for clients as well. Meet several designers whose work you like and ask them many questions; probe not just their work, but gauge if they’re interested in you, in your life, what their interests are outside of work, which is how you come to answer the question Sham posed: Are energies aligned?
If there’s a caveat, it is that you must be realistic with yourself. People tend to chase a conceptual/aspirational dream home that they imagine will be a complete departure from the life they live in the present. Consider your current lifestyle, its rituals and practices, and use those yardsticks to choose your potential designer. Consider those same factors when you prepare that listicle of what a new home should have, so that you don’t end up with dead spaces and unused accessories.
“We tell clients to tell us what they want based on how they live now. Sometimes people will say we don’t entertain now but we will when we have a new house. Or I’ll sit in a bathtub when I have one, even though they probably don’t even use it in a hotel. A leopard never changes spots, like they say, and maybe you don’t do those things because that’s not an important part of your lifestyle. Our advice is always to do practical things," says Sham.
As much as the space-creation process is about who you are, it is also an experience that will teach you new things about yourself. People who talk of building a dream home haven’t actually built one yet because that process can be painful, it can be slow, it can be daunting, and it will take more time and resources than you planned. And that’s why it is important to choose the right partner to plan it for you.
Manju Sara Rajan is an editor, arts manager and author who divides her time between Kottayam and Bengaluru.
