Sleek, minimal and uniquely crafted Soch Group’s office by Saniya Kantawala Design in Mumbai embodies the perfect balance between comfort, efficiency as well as aesthetics.
The Soch Group is an organization that is a mix of varied verticals with entrepreneurship at its core. Celebrating and materializing the company’s ethos, their office, designed by Saniya Kantawala Design (SKD), embodies the same spirit. Located in Santacruz, Mumbai, in a premium office building, the Soch office strikes the right balance between functionality and aesthetics.
Spanning over an area of 3,500 sq ft, the office is divided into a central reception zone, with a dedicated staff area on one side and a director’s zone on the other. As one enters the office space, they are welcomed by the reception and waiting area, both of which are designed in colours of sunrise to create a vibrant, yet elegant colour palette. Connecting with the staff area visually as well as volumetrically, a uniform flooring pattern creates a flow of spaces throughout the office. The reception desk is clad in tiles to recreate the aesthetics and textures of a rug with hand-painted tassels to add quirky details.
The staff area is composed of a chair and table pattern as per the client’s request, creating an open plan layout. Crafted for a young millennial workforce, the staff area offers a variety of seating and experiences. Cushioned along the windows, community bar-style seating and meeting pods are created to foster community building within the team as well as promote casual conversations. The combination of meeting rooms as well as meeting pods, allows for a formal as well as informal meeting environment amongst the workforce. The community area is designed with bright sage and red seating, in line with the sunrise palette, while adding bold and vibrant elements to the space. The beams running through the space have been coated in vinyl to imitate the effects of laminates to create a softer, unobtrusive background. The internal partitions used to create the meeting rooms are clad with the same wallpaper to add a sense of continuity.
Flanked onto the ceiling, the art installation travels from the reception area to the staff area. Custom designed for the space, the installation is composed of an aluminium meshwork in neutral tones. Explaining the design details Saniya Kantawala says, “Conceptually inspired by paper and its characteristic to envelop and open up, the topography of the installation is designed to reflect the juxtaposed furniture layouts in the spaces below. The installation is created as an individual hexagonal meshwork transforming into modules, then layered together to create the stunning art piece.”
As one moves toward the director’s area, the passage is lined with vertical panels to create a sense of rhythm and linearity. The powder room is located along the passage with the panels used to conceal the door of the powder room by creating an intriguing entry into a completely different space.
The powder room is designed with a combination of cutwork and mirror pieces creating an illusion of a never-ending space.
As one enters the director’s area the dedicated reception and waiting zone greets them into the space. The reception area is adorned with frames left for the client to fill in with their keepsakes from their philanthropic work for underprivileged artistically inclined children. With a whitewashed veneer finish coupled with a salmon-pink velvet backdrop creates the setting for the reception table. The open seating for the legal department and the personal assistants for the directors, allow for open and spacious planning. As one moves into the space, the passageway is articulated with simple cutwork tiles leading to a library unit in the centre and the director’s cabins on both sides. The directors’ cabins are designed as pods with bespoke details for each of the directors. The first director’s cabin is adorned with a bespoke blue paint finish table with muted back panels and storage units. The ceiling is finished in veneer finish with sleek groves and brass inlay to add a touch of elegance. The second director’s cabin, located across the conference room, has a whitewashed veneer ceiling treatment in a chevron pattern to accentuate the space with a neutral ceiling finish complementing the velvet finish wall treatment. The conference room table is designed to create a scribble effect with wire mesh zig-zag on a wooden base finished with PU lamination.
The Soch office creates a space that fosters workspace wellbeing. Plants of a variety of sizes accentuate spaces around the office. Designed for a young millennial workforce, the office design maximizes the available space to offer comfortable, yet exciting experiences full of vibrancy.
