Pooja and Dan are two architects who are merging British interiors with Indian sensibilities. They give us a house tour.
Colour scheme
Dan: I guess what most people would do in the UK is paint everything white or have a feature wall or a bit of exposed wood. The deep colours of Indian interiors are quite distinct from that. The surfaces are exposed and they give the space their character. So the blocks are pigmented, they’re not just painted. The floors are quarry tiles made from a kind of deep fire, clay (in Stafford) it’s sheer clay that comes in that dark color. The walls are clay plaster, which is natural, and has this kind of earthy tone. I think that the dusty pink blocks are a colour you see in a lot of the different Indian towns. Jaipur is a good example of that.
Small Door
Dan: It’s kind of a creative response to a very technical bit of regulations or legislation. So because we opened up a staircase, it means you have to be able to then escape for fire reasons from a first floor window. And because we also did the side return, it meant that from our kids’ room, he couldn’t climb out of that first door window. So instead he had to be able to have a direct route into our room to climb out the first floor window in the front. It’s 450 by 1100 millimeters or something which is the perfect size door for a small child.
Pooja: I think it’s very rare to have things that are designed at the children’s scale. So whenever we have nephews, nieces, friends over, they’re just really excited by seeing something that’s their size. You think about Alice in Wonderland and there is so much in their imagination of doors and hiding spaces and comfort.
“We have an Indian daybed, called a charpoy, which historically people sleep on in villages. You can pick it up and take it out in the garden and have a nap." — Pooja
Kitchen Shelves
Pooja: I grew up in India. I’ve been in this country for many years now, but there’s definitely a lot of Indian food made in this house. So there’s my masala dabba, but then we also have loads of jars of different types of lentils and rice, it reminds me of mum at home. But we also have breakfast cereal. It’s a very British kitchen thing to have a wooden counter, but the surface of our kitchen is steel, partly because we cook so much with turmeric that it avoids getting stained. We love hosting. My Diwali parties have become an annual destination.
Windows
Dan: So actually when we moved to the house, the first thing that we really loved about it was that it’s got a blank wall, which is the back of a library that it looks onto, but it’s also facing due south. So the garden from spring onwards feels kind of tropical. The windows, the big door and the skylight are all there to bring in and choreograph how the sunlight comes into the space. So it gets cast on the pink wall behind and shadows dance across the wall. There’s something you often get in Indian interiors where you get this kind of really bright sun outside and then these kind of quite darkly textured interiors. And we wanted to create that kind of feeling here.
Rooms with books and desk
Dan: At the bottom part of the desk, there’s all these pullout grade boxes where we keep all the kids toys which is crucial storage!
Pooja: We also have an Indian daybed there, called a charpoy, which historically people sleep on in villages. Part of the kind of flexibility of that space was the confidence not to overdesign it. So the charpoy takes up quite a big chunk of that room, but it’s a really nice alternative to having a sofa because it’s really low. It’s also quite light, so you can pick it up and take it out in the garden in summer, and you can transport it quite easily. But also you can just chill and have a nap in the afternoon.
Photo essay taken from Loka Journal Volume One - our magazine exploring stories on South Asian design, home, culture, food and chai - blending heritage with innovation.
