Studio 2+2 Transforms Apartment in Western India into a Modern Family Home
“We don’t believe in buying furniture,” proclaims Shivansh Singh, half of the design duo behind the boutique India-based design firm, Studio 2+2. For the pair’s most recent residential project—transforming a compact apartment in the city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat, India, into a multi-functional family home—Singh and his partner Janki Vyas created the furnishings using materials strictly sourced from local artisans.
Singh and Vyas’s clients—a pair of artistically-inclined newlyweds with a small family–challenged the designers to maximize every nook and cranny of their 800-square-foot apartment. Studio 2+2’s strategy, developed by Pratik Jethi and executed by Suraj Keswani, involved tearing down walls to expand the living room, creating optical illusions using reflections of light off of mirrors and fluted glass, for example, and infusing the space with unconventional colors and textures.
“Everyone in Gujarat uses blue tones,” Singh explains, noting that cool colors are commonly used in Indian design to combat the heat. “We went with green,” Vyas adds, “because psychologically, it’s a comforting color, too.” Playful accents, such as a stingray fixtures over the main bed, are balanced by grounding materials throughout, such as the stone-inspired wallcovering in the entryway, welcoming visitors into the home with a rustic touch.
