The ‘70s Vibe

Flash Black designed by Urban Zen in Hyderabad, a multilevel lounge and bar, has a non-intimidating environment that portrays its inclusive ambience through a warm colour palette and engaging graffiti.

Curated by: Deepa Nair
Photographs: Ricken Desai, courtesy Urban Zen

Interior designer: Rohit Suraj

The site

Flash Black designed by Urban Zen in Hyderabad is located in a corner plot in the plush neighbourhood of Jubilee Hills. Spread over 15,000 sq ft, the site had its unique challenges as it was an existing building. The warm shell had to go through considerable structural and architectural changes for the design team to extract and showcase its potential. Dropping slabs, fabricating levels and cladding the facade were some of the key changes which were undertaken.

The brief

The client’s brief was simple and primarily required a space that was instantly relatable to a wide range of users from different walks of life. With the concept of fabricating a quirky environment with the help of bold interiors, each portion of the ambience was aimed at catching the eye of people who walked in. The design scheme is aimed at offering a ‘non-intimidating’ environment that showcases its unusual aesthetics with a warm colour palette and engaging graffiti.

The design intent

Flash Black as the name suggests, is intuitive in many ways to the design ethos. Retro, funk infused elements drive the design intent of creating a backdrop that goes back in time to the 70s’.

The civil intervention

A mezzanine level, as well as a cut-out slab, is used to create a double-height vaulted ceiling where some of the civil changes were undertaken. The idea was also to ensure that the entire space was visible from almost every location. “Challenges were faced at primarily the time of civil construction,” says Rohit. “The challenge was to keep the structural integrity of the space intact while introducing our various design interventions,” he adds.

The spatial configuration

The Flash Black lounge and bar is spread across three floors — from the second floor of the building extending to the terrace. On entering the second floor, one is welcomed by a double-height space which creates an imposing entrance. The artistic bar zones are differentiated from the relaxed lounge areas by their lively epoxy flooring. The back-lit display behind the bar serves users a tangy cocktail of experiences. The other portion of this floor is divided into mellow lounges along with dimmed yellow lighting that amplifies a visitor’s experience.

Arriving at the next level, a varied combination of seating milieus and configurations are further presented to the users. With the planned layout of one indoor and two outdoor seating areas, the design composition offers a slight variation in flavour. The decor of the mezzanine floor is in absolute conformity with that of the second floor, with the bar in vibrant epoxy flooring and the aesthetic mild steel structuring. Serving the functional aspects of acoustic treatment, DGU glazing has been used that further aids in creating the visceral ambience. The culminating level at the terrace consists of two semi-open seating options and a luxurious private lounge.

The material palette

A human graffiti sketch on the wall at the bar on the second floor provides the space with an offbeat semblance, while the incorporation of wood and ambient lighting illuminates the area with the requisite warmth. The use of mild steel frames and black tandoor flooring for the double-height pockets surrounds the bar area in a refined sense of modernism. On the other part of the divided floor, the grey tiled flooring is mirrored in the soft furnishings. These spaces utilise an abundance of wood, displayed as a part of the aesthetic pine wood frames and the instilled decor. On the mezzanine floor, the decorative pendant pattern of the ceiling completes the charming layout. The terrace level is decorated with three-dimensional art in bright hues of blue and yellow and the ceiling has cone lighting that exudes a warm aura across space.

The quaintly beaming bar houses a combination of deck wood flooring and vintage light fittings. Encompassing illuminated neon art on the walls, the outdoor seating areas are bound by mild steel frames with over 300 exquisite bulbs hanging from them to create a showering host of golden lights. The culminating level is decorated with three-dimensional art in bright hues of blue and yellow, the ceiling has cone lightings illuminating the aura of this serene set-up.

The highlights

As the design meanders into the mezzanine and terrace floors, one stumbles upon the accentuated colourful mosaic pattern that is placed across the walls travels from the second floor to the terrace level. Included to break the monotony of the dark themed decor, it showcases an illusion of an individual moving between levels. The vitality of the room has been subtly expressed through the use of wooden massing and green wall installations, adding a more defined character to the connecting corridors.

The takeaway

“The design of the Flash Black lounge is a sheer corollary of plethoric compositional styles ranging from being upbeat and naïve to posing for sophisticated opulence. Flash Black taught us the importance of sticking to our concept and executing it the way we wanted people to feel in the space. The experience we endured during the process of designing was only to create experiences for the users of the space,” Rohit shares.