Rooshad Shroff Brings The Balance Collection to India Art Fair
Mumbai-based design firm Rooshad Shroff showcases his latest masterpiece, The Balance Collection, to the design segment of India Art Fair 2025. Known for its meticulous craftsmanship and innovative approach to materiality, the studio presents a furniture collection that redefines elegance and equilibrium. Amrita Shah explores the inspirations, processes, and design philosophy behind this stunning new design collection.
Rooshad Shroff (RS) is a boutique firm that was founded by its namesake in 2011. With an established practice spanning the design spectrum, the firm specialises in architecture, interiors and bespoke furniture. The principal of the firm, Rooshad believes in the philosophy of integrated design and in showcasing the intricacies and nuances of Indian artisanry.
RS has carved out a niche for itself in marrying Indian craft with high-end luxury. Based in a country where abundance of craft is a unique advantage, and working toward contemporising artisanry in order to make it relevant in today’s design language, Rooshad collaborates with artisans from across the country – from Jaipur for marble carving, New Delhi for woodwork and Mumbai and Lucknow for embroidery, re-honing their skills to show a more contemporary aesthetic.
The Balance collection that was launched in October 2024, showcases this amalgamation of streamlined forms with age-old techniques after considerable time and experimentation.
Rooshad says, “My obsession with design and craft fuelled a desire to explore both architecture and furniture design on different scales. While majority of my work is focused on the geometry of buildings, I ventured into designing objects almost as soon as I launched my private practice. We’ve been fortunate as a firm to have worked on diverse projects, from residences and exhibitions to visual merchandising and even on events like weddings.”
Hermès Theme of the Year: Astonishment; Window Design Mumbai: Nature in Full Bloom By Rooshad and team.
It is no wonder that the firm forayed into visual merchandising and has been commissioned exclusively by French label Hermès to design their boutique window displays in Mumbai and Delhi for seven straight years.
n 2023, under the curatorship of Hamish Bowles, designers Patrick Kinmoth and Rooshad Shroff executed the production of the India In Fashion exhibit at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre in Mumbai.
In 2023, Shroff also co-designed the India in Fashion exhibit held at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Convention Centre alongside Patrick Kinmoth.
Developing Balance
Rooshad talks about the evolution of the Balance collection that was recently showcased at the Indian Art Fair’s Design segment.
“Balance started off as a single piece in 2021 – a side table representative of two pebbles stacked atop one another within a natural setting. Drawing from that initial inspiration, we continued to build upon the theme of inversion and anomalies in nature, and over the course of the next three years, we ended up creating a whole collection.”
This collection of furniture and accessories echoes the theme of structural anomalies in nature, and tells the story through sculptural pieces juxtaposing curvilinear forms with cantilevered planes moulded out of semi-precious metals and stones.
Shades of white, green and pink onyx dominate the collection, accented by semi-precious red jasper, lapis lazuli and mookaite as well as white bronze that develops a patina over time.
Shroff explains that the materials were deliberately selected – the stones to show their enduring quality, and the brass to show a graceful aging as it changes colour over the years.
Alongside utilitarian but sculptural objects such as a credenza and dining table, a bar unit floats on a ball of jasper, featuring a brass finish interior and exterior in chrome and a full-length mirror displays alabaster lights running down the centre. Balance also marks the studio’s first foray into a host of upholstered pieces; cashmere adorns the footstools, sofa and armchairs, the latter placed atop a specially cast metal base with legs in marble or onyx.
The studio has also designed a triad of carpets inspired by work sketches for the collection. Hand-embroidered with zardozi in cord wound from cotton thread, Rooshad says these are his favourite pieces from the collection.
Rooshad admits that finding the centre of gravity of each piece to achieve that ‘balance’ was the tricky part in designing the collection.
He concludes, “As we enjoy a process-led design approach, challenges often compel us to come up with clever solutions and in doing so, they create new design opportunities.” Solutions that created seemingly gravity-defying pieces that rely on the uncompromising principles of structure.
