In conversation with Aniruddha Nafrey from Curious Canvas, an interior design firm based out of Mumbai, which aims to redefine the efficiency of the design process and execution of bespoke interiors. The following text is the edited transcript from the conversation at his office, on the 29th of March, 2022.
INSIDE [IN]: Tell us a little about your background and initiation into Architecture as a young professional?
Aniruddha Nafrey [AN]: I am a graduate from Sir J.J. College of Architecture, and I finished my Bachelor of Architecture in 1993. We had an apprenticeship period of six months back then. From then on, for almost seven to eight years, I worked with Talati and Panthaky, who run one of the topmost interior architectural firms in Mumbai. With them, I was lucky that we could work with very high-end clients. My first job was a bungalow for one of the top industrialists in Mumbai. During my entire time working with them, at no point had we really thought about the budgets, any limitations to materials to be used, any sort of timelines, etc. We could design freely, and had a free hand to do anything we wanted.
When I started my own practice, I realized that it is a completely different world outside. The clients here wanted everything like the high-end clients, but they did not want to spend that kind of money. They did not have the same amount of time or resources. The contractors which we were working with were completely different, and had to be taught. You had to actually sit with them, and explain to them what was to be done. The whole journey from point A to point B was completely different. It took us some time to get things in a proper workflow. We developed our own contractors, and our own teams who could understand the design language that we were speaking. This gave us a better finish. I remember that at night, after my dinner, I used to go to the site, just to see whether the work is happening properly or not. I don’t remember a single Sunday which I spent sitting at home. It’s always been on site, educating my team working with me. Touchwood, some of my designers and architects have been with me for the last 18 years. They have evolved, developed and grown up with us along the line.
Initially, we spent a lot of time with our teams, but what we achieved was that we could give almost the same look and finish of luxury, at a much lesser cost. After the pandemic, things have really changed. People do want to go for that type of idea, but the timeframe has now drastically reduced. If we were delivering something, which at the time was at a record time of six to nine months, now it’s reduced to three or four months. I could have never imagined five to six years ago, that we were delivering houses at a record speed of four months. So now, for an ideal size of a three-bedroom apartment, we actually guarantee a time period of 90 days to maximum 120 days. I think that is an unbelievable achievement, which we have reached and all this is because of our concept of curious canvas.
We have redefined the way bespoke interiors are carried out. So that’s what curious canvas is about; redefining bespoke interiors.
[IN]: Where did the concept of Curious Canvas come from?
[AN]: I have been in this industry for the last 25 years, and I have worked with a few of the top architects here in India, especially doing high-end to mid-end interiors. Over this period of time, I realized that it is a very tedious process, where you need to change the design more than ten times. You need to talk to not just one family member, but often ten different family members and get their approval. Then somebody else will propose changes. Then you take them out for the material selections. It is the same process we follow in the same shops for all our clients. You show them the marble, veneers and laminates, and then somebody says that they have someone who has a much better offer. Then the whole team goes to that particular place to visit. This whole process takes a huge amount of time, and with of the number of projects we had, our capacities and capabilities were not at all being utilized. We could do many more projects than what we were actually working on. No doubt it was fun. The fun process of going with the clients to different shops, doing the selections and shopping with them. However, at some point I realized that there had to be an easy way out for this, and with new age technology coming in, we were hardly using our technology to its maximum potential. Other than doing just basic views, we were not doing anything new.
Here is where the idea of Curious Canvas was generated; from this tiredness, or rebellion against the traditional way of doing interiors.
What happens next is interesting. The clients come with their thoughts, and with some design concepts. Images and photographs are available to everybody. They do this exercise beforehand and they will come with some of their own ideas. The best part here, is that designers are so well trained that they will immediately pick up the design language which the client wants or likes. It’s not just that we show them reference images. We can immediately put the same in a 3D model, because of the library which we have already created. For them it will be a live, virtual 3D model, created in a span of not less than 20-25 minutes. You can imagine their surprise, on seeing the whole house in a 3D model, with a possibility of a walkthrough, in a matter of just 20-30 minutes. Often, what they have in mind gets completely changed when we put it up in a 3D platform, and then they start liking what we suggest. Of course, we keep in mind their ideas or whatever they like.
That is why we say we make your dreams come true, because we don’t completely discard their dreams, or what they have thought of. To be honest, it is their house. If I only sell them my design, it is not going to work for what they are looking for. The library of the options which we have gives them the option of selecting what would suit them the best, closest to what they had imagined for their spaces. They can see it in a matter of minutes on an actual 3D virtual platform. That’s the whole advantage of Curious Canvas. Now, it does not just stop there, that’s the best part. Every part of what they envision can be manufactured in our factory. There are a few limitations to it, but we have managed, or rather achieved 80% of this particular reality in which everything that you see and select, including the fabrics and marble, can be sourced by us and can be totally manufactured in the factory and given to you. It is not just about design, it is also executing that design into reality. That’s the possibility in Curious Canvas. We have different finishes for the wardrobes. It starts from laminates, PU, high gloss, finishes of different colors, and different veneers and leather. Whatever be your selection, all of that is possible to be actually manufactured in our factory. Whatever you dream, you can actually visualize and we can construct or manufacture it to the last detail in our factory. That is the best thing about Curious Canvas.
[IN]: How is the design process integrated with the manufacturing process of the factory?
[AN]: Let’s suppose we start with the bedroom. We start by looking at the different bed design options we have. We have hundreds of options for beds. Once the client selects the beds which they like, we can make the bed a starting point to their design theme. Or we look at whether you are going for a minimalistic, contemporary classic, or fusion look. We have all these different options for the beds, based on the preferred aesthetic style. Not necessarily all the time, but many a time we let the client first see the bed, because that is the first thing you would like to have in your room. The bed is the first point where you are going to relax. Then based on those selections, we start working on the walls and ceilings. We start working on the different wardrobe options which we can provide. The designers start the process, and the client just needs to select from the different options which we have. We can immediately put that onto the 3D platform, convert it into a 3D model, render it, and the client can see it. Along with us, he or she gets to see the design process. It is not like initiating a design process and after 10 days a design will be ready for you, and then the design might not be liked at all. Then after another 10 days, we will rework a new option. This back-and-forth process is totally eliminated.
If the client requires, we can spend a day or two with the clients continuously, and we can finish the entire house, and they can get a rendered view at the end of those two days, after which we can sign off on the design. Once that design is frozen, they may take a day or two to think over it and finalize it. Then we work on the final cost lines. For this, we do need to have a back and forth with our factory. There could be a revision in certain things, depending on the factory precision, which the designers may have missed. The workers at the factory work on precise finishing and detailing, and come back to us with the whole cost. These costings are finally shared with the client. We sign-off on it and the execution process immediately starts. We divide the process in two parts. One, which is to be done at the site and the other, which is to be done at the factory. The civil work, the electrical work, the ceiling and painting; all that is done at the site. There’s a team which handles that and the other, at the factory, starts working on the fixed and loose furniture, which includes sofas, wardrobes, beds and paneling. We look at a time span for a typical 3 BHK as something within three to three and a half months, to finish the civil work on site. Simultaneously, the same things are being done at the factory. At the end of the three months, we are ready on both sides and we start assembling the whole thing. Of course, accessorizing is the most important part of the end process, where we look at the bed covers, decorative lights, and niches that need to be decorated with different decor items. These are done by the stylist who is on board with us. She helps the designers to get the right decor pieces to be kept, as required. In fact, we also insist on going to the depth of selecting the towels, napkins, bed sheets etc. You would not believe, we even select the shampoos and soaps, because the toilet has to look good. It has to be the best. So, when client comes in, they come into a completely new house. They just have to come in with their suitcases and other items, to start shifting into the house. That is what we go for.
[IN]: Can you tell us about how the software you have developed at your studio works?
[AN]: The software we use is a 3D modeling software that can be compared to SketchUp, or 3Ds Max. It could be compared to any other 3D modeling software, but the special part about it is that we have spent almost two years developing the design models, which we keep updating. Even right now, we have a set of designers who are creating all these models. We are also looking at the possibility of giving international brands of furniture to our clients. We are working on models where all the international furniture blocks are being created by us. Now, imagine you come to me and you asked me that you’re looking for this Italian brand as your sofa. We have a block in which we can change the fabric. We can elongate and reduce its size. These possibilities are not there on any other software. With any other software, there is a dependency on the existing blocks that the 3D software has to offer, which generally may not be liked by most of the clients, so it’s good as an indicative design decision. For us, it’s no longer just an indicator. The blocks that we create are things that we ourselves can manufacture and give you. A backup team is already working on different models and furniture blocks which we can manufacture in the factory. So that’s a major difference we have between our software and any other software, because this is inbuilt by us. We can develop it the way we want it.
The other part of this is that, this software is also directly integrated with the factory. We do not have to then make detailed working drawings. These directly get converted into working drawings and they go to the factory and the factory produces the final product, the way we want it. That is the biggest advantage of what we are doing. Whatever you see in 3D, is what you will actually get on site. We have the possibility of seeing whatever we have done in 3D on a virtual reality platform, and you put on the Oculus and you can actually feel where you are in the space. You are walking from one room to another room and you can see the furniture as you are actually walking in the room. However, this technology needs to be further developed to give it a far more realistic feel. What we are working on right now should be able to get the textures of the fabrics, and the walls. At this moment, we have a virtual reality tool, which you can put on and you can actually see yourself walking in the room. That’s something which we have worked on.
[IN]: Can you tell us about one of your landmark projects, and what were the challenges that came with executing it?
[AN]: Recently, we had a very challenging project, which we just completed. This client had a ‘Jodi flat’, which is an apartment where you buy two neighboring flats and combine them as one, and the developer sells them as such. So, they had a 7 BHK, which they wanted us to design. One could almost consider these as two flats, so the challenge was to create this as one flat in the same amount of time. So instead of taking three to four months for each apartment, we had to do everything in three and a half to four months. That was a big challenge. Apart from this, we were also doing it during the peak pandemic period. We had a lot of issues with the laborers’ movements, and we had to do the RT-PCR covid test every two to three days. It was a high-rise society in one of the top luxury residences here in Mumbai, and the challenge was to do that in four to five months because the client had to shift there immediately. People who had been caught in the pandemic while they were in between houses, are still so scared that there can be another lockdown at any moment, so they were desperate to shift. I think the design process with them for the seven-bedroom apartment took not more than 10 days, as the lady who was basically involved in the design process from the client side, was very methodical, knew what she wanted and could take decisions quickly.
That was an added advantage for us. The design discussions would sometimes go on till 12 o’clock or even one o’clock in the night. We had a non-stop process with them and completed the whole design sign-off in 10 days. Some of the furniture which had to be manufactured in the factory was done in India, and the other part of it was done in China. We started the order on the 15th day after the clients came to us with a design intention. The challenge was then on site, since we had to start from the marble floor, to the ceiling, air conditioning, electricals, plumbing, etc. We were showing the designs to them on the 3D platform and we were getting them executed at the same time. We didn’t have the liberty of designing and then going to the site. We had to do both processes simultaneously. We made some changes to the design and showed it to them, and immediately got it executed. Whatever furniture was to be manufactured in the factory had to start first, so we got those selections from the clients. Even before the false ceiling or the flooring was done, we went with a fixed size of furniture. We knew that this was the size for which we had ordered. Now the walls had to be done with this measurement itself, so we couldn’t go wrong with that. Even the angles, the plumb, and everything else had to be kept in such a way that it matched the given sizes.
We had our supervisor in charge whose job was to see and coordinate both parts of the process. Touchwood, the whole process went on very smoothly, minus a few hiccups on site, but we could deliver the house to them in less than five months. That was one of the most unbelievable projects, which I myself have not been able to achieve, as a designer practicing from so many years; but I could achieve it because of Curious Canvas.
[IN]: What is the kind of feedback, or responses you get from the clients post occupancy?
[AN]: We have a post-work group, wherein whatever snags the clients face after shifting are sorted out. In most cases, we generally face very minimal issues. There could be some leakage somewhere from one of the pipes. Sometimes the pressure valve fails, or there is a clog in the sink. Sometimes there is less pressure in the flush valves. These are initial teething problems, which we face for at least a month or two, from the clients’ side. After that, however, there are no issues.
I have worked with not just one or two generations of clients, but also the third generation. I designed somebody’s house when their daughter was going to school. I did her bedroom when she was a little girl, with lots of pink and floral colours. Then, as a teenager, when she was going to college, we redid the whole room again and now she is married and I am doing her in-laws’ house. She insisted that if anybody is going to design my house it is going to be Aniruddh, and nobody else. That is the sort of faith our clients or even our clients’ children have, and this is what we bank on. We don’t do any marketing other than what we put on our social media platforms for everybody to see. However, the goodwill that we have earned over the many years of good service, are always remembered and clients still call us whenever they have any queries, and we are always there for them ⊗
Aniruddha Nafrey is an architectural designer who has spent over 25 years creating elegant and inventive spaces. He founded Curious Canvas, an interior design firm in Mumbai, which is now a leading interior design company in India, and provides the most exclusive residential interiors with a concept of factory-made bespoke furniture and furnishing. Powered by cutting-edge VR and 3D technology, the studio completes a majority of the design work before the execution process begins on site, which allows them to achieve a seamless experience that significantly minimizes the time taken to complete a project.
