I WANT 'MY HOME' LIKE 'THEIR HOME'

A few days back, a dear friend called me saying I should accompany him earnestly to his under construction apartment . The reason-There were some changes they were asking the developer to do in their apartment, which the developer was denying. So I went along with my friend & found out, that his wife had seen similar changes being done in their neighboring apartment & had liked them, so she wanted to repeat the same in their home. So I suggested that we see both the flats. After analyzing both the houses, I realized that, even though the two flats had similar layout, technically they were not the same. The room sizes in his house were much smaller. There were columns & beams of varying heights within the walls as compared to his neighbor’s house. These conditions made it difficult for the developer to remove the walls their neighbors had removed & also even if they do so(with lot of expense), the space will appear very different than the space they had liked in the other house. So I had a difficult time explaining to him & his wife that, their house was great as it is & no changes will be required to be done.

This is the most common phenomena Architects encounter. People are overwhelmed by other houses they like & want their house to look ‘the Same’. It is not possible every time because  I think every house can be custom made as per your requirements & each condition (technical as well as liking factor) is different from person to person as well as house to house. People come with photos, refer to houses they see in daily serials, movies, magazines etc. A client wanted to fit a semicircular staircase he had seen in a brochure in his bungalow which I was designing on a very small plot. We have a young IT professional living in our building  who eagerly picked up an expensive sofa set from a showroom & had to sell it off the very next day , just because the sofa which he felt great in the showroom would not fit in his modestly size living room. People are shocked when they find out the very curtains which they had liked in the shop would not match with the decor what they have in their existing rooms.

The main reason why people like other people’s homes is related with their aspirations in wanting what they do not have & wish to have. People literally see themselves living is a space they like & there is nothing wrong in this. The only issue here is as compared with a simple decision of buying a car which you may have liked in the showroom, making changes in the house or adding an object in the house is related with the overall experience of the interior space which the human mind feels. Here a good Architect can advice you because he is trained in sensing the scale & proportions due to which he can help decide the size, location, color & texture of various surfaces & objects in a room. The lifestyle & culture of the person whose house you may have liked may be completely different from you, which needs to be considered while designing. Also there are a large number of technical issues regarding construction, which you may not understand.

The moral of this post is that, even though it is your right to have a space designed suiting best to your liking & life style, it is best to consult an Architect during this process. I advice my clients to send me what I call an ‘Imagery’ in form of photographs of all the various spaces they have liked so that I can get an idea of what they like. I also try to understand in depth their lifestyle & culture which helps me in customizing their home.

So instead of copying the Home of your friend or a neighbor , figure out what ‘You like’ & what is ‘Best suitable to your lifestyle’

- Hrishikesh