Kunal Shah Designs

There's an  amazing array of talents in India and Kunal Shah is one among them and one of my favourites. It's his understated elegance and love for the simplicity yet making a traditional touch ,love for flowers that instantly drew me towards following his works.

I also love the fact that my inspirations remain his too:)-He is inspired by the works of Geoffrey Bawa ,John Pawson, Gaudi and Bijoy Jain.

All thanks to my dear friend Shalini Pereira.Its through her i read more about him and became virtual friends.They both are good friends and fellow IED alumnis.Kunal Sha founded Kunal Shah designs in 2004.This boutique design firm believes in a restrained and understated design aesthetic that focuses on subtle nuances and finer details. I love the clean lines and almost minimalist feel to the spaces he creates. They are very contemporary and yet unmistakably Indian.

Kunal travels a lot and often draws inspiration from his travels and his other passion, art.

Seen below are some awesome vignettes of his amazing home on instagram.The amazing pick of carefully selected furniture,art and the cool neutral palettes.His aesthetically simple minimalistic approach. Amazingly homely,but an old world charm.An amazing appreciation and love towards the different forms of art and craft. 

His home has a mixture of sculptures and books and flowers thrown here and there creating its own warmth.in love with all these..

Thank you kunal for allowing me to share all these images.

May you create more beautiful homes:)- and amazing spaces!

  

All images courtesy:Kunal Shah ..Instagram account.

Please ask permission if you want to use the images.

Isla Van Damme !

Isla Van Damme (call her Loulou) 68-year-old Van Damme has done her whole life, building her career as a designer, a stylist, a restaurateur.At present working with Bungalow 8 on a project.

She runs a beautiful  guesthouse in the Palani Hills, a two-bedroom cottage that nods to the style of English bungalows and French plantation houses built here during the Raj (the property abutting Van Damme’s is a working pepper and coffee plantation founded by French Jesuits). There’s the outdoor teak furniture; there’s the handknit cashmere “leopard-skin” carpet, a take on the tiger carpets used by Tibetan monks for meditation, that took Van Damme’s weaver in Delhi a year to complete; there’s the Turkish kilim, similar to the ones she used to sell in Belgium; and there are shelves of books bought at art exhibitions.

 Van Damme’s personal style is more Banjara than Belgian, she is fastidious about the most minute details. 

Now that her guesthouse in the hills is complete, she’s begun work on the design for a second, larger house farther along the ridge. By the time that’s finished, Van Damme plans to be growing as much as 60 percent of the produce she needs for herself and her guests in her own garden. She recently started making her own butter; she may even learn to make cheese. She’s talked about starting up a drum festival with her neighbors to promote local tribal music and wants to work with a friend to improve sanitation and awareness about littering in the nearby villages.

Text courtesy :Architectural Digest,Image courtesy:Pinterest,AD