Moderno Interiors Outfits a London Home With Hotel-Worthy Amenities
After a varied career encompassing everything from pharmacology to painting children’s furniture, Kajal Patel discovered her passion for interior design. Her specialty? As her studio name would suggest: modern interiors. Specifically “detox” spaces where Zen reigns. “Simplicity, serenity, and seamlessness are the way forward to allow us to escape from the hectic world we live in,” Patel explains. “And our senses are one of the greatest assets in acknowledging successful design, from the feel of materials to the scent of candles.”

This London home, Patel’s first big commission, takes natural, unadorned materials in a restrained palette and marries them to extravagant hotel-worthy amenities, ranging from a bar large enough to function as a commercial enterprise to a shape-shifting indoor swimming pool powered by hydraulics. With the push of a button, the bottom of the pool rises, making the water shallower and safer for children. Another push, and the bottom rises till it’s flush with the pool surrounds, turning it into a tiled dance floor in just eight minutes. (The water circulates underneath as normal.) Completing the transformation, disco lighting concealed in a mirrored void overhead cranks up the nightclub experience a notch. Ingenious.

Project Team: Design Principal: Kajal Patel. Architect: MRP Developments.