Modern Living

Studio Yamini toe the minimal line in this modern Vadodara apartment uses retrained materiality and visual expression to render a clean, fuss-free living environment.

Curated by: Rupali Sebastian
Photographs: Photographix India; courtesy Studio Yamini

Gentle and peaceful, the visual expression of the living room exemplifies the aesthetic direction of this design narrative. The floor and walls are grey, with the latter punctuated by other material applications for relief.

The site

Located on the 7th floor, JP Apartment overlooks a lush piece of land from the living room and the dining area. Given large windows on that side, the home is quite blessed with natural light. 

The brief

The clients, a young couple, didn’t have the requirements of formal entertaining and heavy storage that are typical of larger families. They wanted a minimal, open environment that was essentially modern in its expression.

The doorway between the living room and the dining area was widened, and a MS and copper screen installed at the junction for a sense of openness.

The civil intervention

To intensify the sense of spaciousness and openness, “we enlarged the doorway between living room and dining area, and installed an MS and copper jaali for that little screening effect,” reveal Mehul and Mitul Shah, principals, Studio Yamini. Additionally, the third bedroom of this erstwhile 3BHK apartment was converted into a walk-in closet for the master bedroom, making it into a 2BHK unit.

The dining area appears more like a casual cafe. The copper pattis that trace a delicate pattern on the wall heighten the sense of understated luxury.

The visual expression and material palette

The overall direction plays with monochromes and simple forms, with luxury sensed rather than being overtly in the face. Grey matte satin-finish tiles tie the visual story together. The colour is repeated on the walls, with the monolithic effect interspersed by cement tiles (installed with the reverse side exposed, for its texture), painted MDF, copper and teakwood. Overall, these form the main constituents of the material palette.

The spatial configuration

The living area flows into a balcony overlooking a verdant patch next-door. A human figure by Ashish Chakraborty that separates the entrance foyer from the living room (rather than a screen) speaks of an experimental attempt at space modulation. The blue patina of the art piece adds a pop of colour to the otherwise neutral story. The living room segues effortlessly into a dining area, the only separation between them is a light-on-the-eye jaali-like screen the architects mentioned earlier. With its round, four-seater table, rather than anything more formal-looking, the dining area seems more like a cafe, an illusion strengthened by the presence of lush plants in the nearby balcony.

A ‘headboard’ rendered in teakwood seems to envelope this bedroom in warmth.

Like the rest of the house, a sense of luxury pervades this area like a soft presence — seen in the subtle texture of the copper-patti embellished cement-sheet wall and the copper legs of the round table. The kitchen next-door is pragmatic and stylish, with high-gloss laminate shutters that make maintenance easy and handmade dado tiles that add a gentle rusticity to the space. Toeing the aesthetic direction central to the narrative of this apartment, the two bedrooms eschew fuss and flourishes and dwell on more important things such as wellness, positivity, sunlight and oxygen-generating greenery. While teakwood expanses behind the bed in one room seem to envelope it in warmth, the second bedroom is crisp and light with subtle texture of reversed cement tiles.

Fact File

Project: JP Apartment
Location: Vadodara
Area: 1,209 sq ft
Principal architects: Mehul Shah and Mitul Shah