A Mentor Story by Studio Aarushi Bafna
The new Jaipur Modern store is a place where an individual can experience the product from inception to production, and ultimately leave with an awareness of craft’s authenticity, integrity, and social consciousness.
Every store has a story and this one is quite intriguing. This store was initially designed by renowned designer Rooshad Shroff, whose work celebrates Indian handicrafts and so does this store. Working under Rooshad and learning in-depth the language of craft gave architect Aarushi Bafna the opportunity to build an extension of this store in Jaipur.
This project was not only a challenge because of tactile reasons like space crunch, low budget, Vastu and multi-utility requirements of the space, but more importantly a challenge for Aarushi to fill in her mentor’s shoes.
The carefully considered space is designed to encourage a perception shift within the Indian & International market; from the local marble inlay in furniture, white terrazzo floor along with teak wood side bands and in-house textile range to a selection of India’s strongest contemporary design voices.
Jaipur Modern is a place where the individual can experience the product from inception to production, and ultimately leave with an awareness of craft’s authenticity, integrity, and social consciousness. Real and evolving, the space has been designed to accommodate artist exhibitions, installations in the garden and workshops by local artisans.
The requirement was clear about extending the existing retail outlet into the setback of the land. Challenges were not only to keep within the government limits but to create a space that doesn’t feel like an outdoor extension and is as pretty as the indoor retail.
With a lot of back and forth we created a method to make a temporary construction that doesn’t not temporary at all. The white wall along with white cement flooring and soft wood ending completely opens up the narrow setback into a really large looking space. The 4 door sliding folding opens up the covered retail to outdoor cafe seating and thus blurring the boundaries of the building completely. The light weight white shelves and display racks take no attention from the retail products thus making the space very breathing The greens and palm trees indoors and outdoors compliments the space as well brings in required warmth. The ceiling has been designed with heat insulating boards cladded on basic black metal members to keep the space cool and the plants will further increase ventilation the breezy ventilation.
The colour scheme revolves around monotones, Black | Greys | Whites | Greens and complimenting teak wood to maintain a balance with the existing space on ground floor. The handmade crafts and arts have been celebrated in minute details of teak wood, brass and fabrics.
The visual merchandising of the retails has been thoughtfully designed using the traditional Jaipur fabric puppet crafts. Each puppet creates an anecdotal scene for the product thus giving the visitor a live experience. The products have been meticulously chosen to celebrate crafts like wooden toys, blue pottery, ikat and so much more.
The origami futon provides a perfect set up showing a local craftsmen selling his products on the streets of the city. The anecdotes have been picked up from such scenes captured at artisans exhibit in Jawahar kala Kendra.
The different structural details as well as visual details that were again specifically designed attending to the need of the space have been shown and explained in net slides.
Project: A Mentor Story
Location: Jaipur, Rajasthan
Design House: Studio Aarushi Bafna
Photography: Studio BluOra
Gallery: