Clapham Pub

A new site under construction and soon to open.
More details to follow in the new year

Genzo Greek

If you are around East Finchley and in mood for good Greek food, do visit Genzo, our fifth restaurant design in London. Some photos of the place through construction and final opening.

  

Baw - pre-design : process : soft opening

This is my third restaurant project designed in London. It is a small 35 cover, Thai / Pan Asian cuisine, by the name Baw and located on Mill Hill high street.
It had a soft opening couple of weeks back.
All the photos of the finished interiors courtesy of photographer Vanessa Polignano.
More photos and updates to follow.

Soft Opening

Couple of weeks back we had a soft opening of a second restaurant designed by me. This being a" soft opening" is a trial run for the restaurant team to test the menu and get valuable feedback on the interiors. The bar and additional feature lighting is still yet to come, but budgetary constraints can very often give rise to interesting phasing strategies!
If you are around West Hampstead on West End Lane, then do drop by in Toomai (Pan Asian Restaurant) and feel free to drop me a feedback of what you think.

All photos courtesy of Sachin Mulane.

I will be posting my own photos and drawings made for the project as soon as the restaurant is completely finished.

Material World

(Generic building typologies in Bombay, First image is Raheja Universal Towers, Second image is of Ariisto Heaven I coming up at Mulund West. Image source: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1234)
Adolf Loos rolled in his grave and maybe dug deeper, while Mumbai Architects, Contractors and Builders actively participated in ornate material orgy at the ACE Architectural Materials Exhibition in the NSE Grounds, Goregaon. Except for a few technological innovations most stalls exhibited cladding, draping and tiling materials. Finishes of various textures, colours and ornaments to clad generic designs and make them true reflections of different individuals' equally generic identities.

(Image of NG Royal Heights at Andheri, image source: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1234)

(Flat Layout diagram of VS Group of builder's, image source: http://www.vsgroup1.com/floor_plan.php )
Interior design as a field here has become something that validates exploitative building trends like reduced ceiling heights, smaller rooms, bad construction quality etc. and works around these "challenges" to change finishes, break some walls, invent 'innovative' furniture (maybe cupboard during the day and your bed during the night kind of bullshit) and turn one generic space into another.
Modernists have died, instead what remain are petty contractors bickering over percentages of material costs, whose interiors are expensive, impressive to look at but still very very generic, sterile and with no formal imagination, and this exhibition reflected all that.
Or maybe it is just me...