Fascinating Foyer Designs @TFOD

Ar. Ninad Tipnis (JTCPL Designs, Mumbai) has a fascinating repertoire of office spaces in his portfolio! The foyer of this office for a company in Mumbai is an attractive, inviting and elegant space that offers a pleasantly surprising experience upon opening the main entrance door! On the other hand, Baroda-based designer Dipen Gada’s home designs are innately impactful, being elegantly balanced between grandeur and sobriety. The entrance lobby (image 1) to this particular two storey sprawling penthouse with a panoramic terrace garden creates an allure by its dimly lit aura with a Zen-like calm which leads to gloriously sun-washed spaces which can be seen in the background.

Simple techniques and brightly coloured accessories coupled with warm lighting have been successfully used by architects Hiren Patel and Dhara Tank Patel in their design for a charming entrance lobby to a home (image 2). Planet3 Studios have used a profusion of differently shaped apertures on the external wall to a magical light-and-shadow effect in their bungalow entrance foyer design (image 4). The lobby to this house designed by Pavan Kakade (image 6) is cleverly tucked into a narrow peripheral space, but the elaborate design which includes a wall panel of black and brown landscape stripes, an all-white tree shaped screen, a bed of pebbles and a potted palm, all looking up through a cut in the ceiling that doubles the tiny foyer’s height, doesn’t let us notice the squeeze at all!

Abida Banu’s design for this home’s entrance foyer (image 5) spells class and elegance in its muted and pure white tones, the theme of linear patterns of diagonal disposition finding nuanced repetition on various surfaces climaxing in the full length floral motif on the door. The loud colours of the painting above the mantel don’t just inject vibrancy into the setting, but also finely off-set its surrounding silence. And, Ar. Puran Kumar’s large lobby for this sprawling exposed brick and concrete bungalow (image 3) opens up on both sides on to sprawling interior spaces that overlook the outdoors through huge openings, letting day light flood in. The picture perfect play of light and shade amidst interwoven spaces that pans out within this restrained palette of material and colour affirms the fact that talent is the only requisite to create poetry. 

Behzad Kharas’ lobby design for a luxury apartment (image 7) has brilliantly back-lighted accessories and huge floral motif flooring as its highlights, while Ashwin Lovekar (image 8) uses the elegance of wood in myriad forms like slatted screen and ceiling, exclusively crafted contemporary chairs and dry twigs held in a vase with starry ceiling lights shining upon the setting of his apartment lobby. Ar. Hiren Patel’s use of rows of repeated geometric patterns on the walls and floor of this apartment building lobby (image 9) makes the space come alive with movement.

For offices and businesses, the reception lobby is of prime importance, acting as the face of the enterprise, presenting designers with an opportunity to showcase their talent. Designer Vinod Suthar has conceptualised the reception lobby for Surat firm Pancchi Fashions (image 10) uniquely using a live green wall as background for the firm’s logo. Figures of birds are suspended above this greenery from a grill that encloses this open-to-sky space, suggestively taking flight into the sky visible above. 

The design for the office of a supplier of mining machinery, tools and trucks, Liebherr India Limited by Ar. Dnyanesh Madgavkar (image 11) was required to be simple and functional, yet reflective of the firm’s innovation and technology driven Philosophy. How this end was stylistically achieved by the designers is evident in the reception lobby where the simple and minimal first impression gives way to an appreciation of the innovative tools like using container sheets for wall panelling. Be it the solid expanse of bright yellow behind the reception desk or the checkerboard pattern created with yellow and shades of grey in the waiting area, the style does cheerfully spell technology, innovation and industry.

Lalita Tharani  and Mujib Ahmed do an elegant job of highlighting the flaming red yet minimal logo of this furniture brand on the sleek Corian counter set against a primarily dark background of cabinets and spot-lit artefacts (image 13).

And, Suresh Lakhani’s jungle themed design (image 15).with real boulders marking the mouth of a friendly lion’s cave on the wall of this children’s hospital lobby is sure to make the young patients feel less intimidated by the hospital environment!! 

These were just a few snippets from the impressive collection of foyer and lobby designs on display on TFOD galleries. There’s plenty more for which you should visit TFOD - The Future Of Design, a free platform which helps the art and design fraternity to share and network – www.tfod.in.