Naturally Contemporary

Siddarth Garrimela-led Esquisse Designs dovetails modern aesthetics and a warm spirit in this Mumbai penthouse — creating not a showplace, but an abode hallmarked by personalised timelessness.

- RUPALI SEBASTIAN

Leaving the safety net of a joint family to establish a unit of one’s own always gives rise to mixed feelings. On one hand is the loss of the security and back-ups that living in a large family affords, on the other, the excitement of creating one’s little slice of heaven. For this young couple, that slice of heaven — in the form of a 2,800-square-foot duplex apartment — reposed in one of Mumbai’s prestigious high-rises. And to make it even more… heavenly, the lady of the house approached Siddarth Garrimela, principal architect and founder of Esquisse Designs with whom she enjoyed aesthetic kinship having worked with him earlier. “She and I think alike,” he declares. “She was absolutely against anything synthetic.” While the core design idea revolved around words such as “vibrant, classy, high-end and modern,” he adds further, “there was a conscious attempt to lace these traits with warmth and earthiness. Once that was established, other things fell smoothly into place.”