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The Naked Home by MuseLAB

MuseLAB has created a clean, simple, and stunning home sans walls, doors, and unnecessary embellishments, where each element in the open plan takes on an imperative role in creating an articulate space.

An end-to-end design studio, MuseLAB is the coming together of two immensely talented wanderers-cum-designers, Huzefa Rangwala and Jasem Pirani, who are intent on offering a leading-edge approach to design.

The “Naked” home is the result of an unconventional brief that required the two designers to envision a 1000sft bachelors’ pad akin to Philip Johnson’s Glass House with an open plan sans walls and doors.

“Essentially, we had to create a pavilion for viewing the hillock in the distance, a lucid space that offers a seamless integration with the cityscape 15 floors above the ground,” says Huzefa Rangwala.

“Naked is a home that is undraped, undisguised, and unexaggerated. The site offered us two one-bedroom units each comprising of a living-dining space, a kitchen, and a bathroom with large windows that gave us unobstructed views of the surroundings. We demolished all the walls to create one contiguous space that is further sprinkled with bare minimum furniture and in the process, we fashioned a home that is synonymous to a Galerie de sculptures with (shockingly) no patterns or colours,” explains Jasem.

The entirety of the apartment is revealed as a large space with each element, every piece of furniture on the canvas picked painstakingly to create, an atmosphere of understated panache. One enters directly into the central living space of the home.

The living space comprises of a cluster of a Soderhamn Ikea sofa, a pair of Phantom Hands Easy Armchairs and Bent by MuseLAB, a metal profile chaise, all of the details assembled around a very architectural coffee table, Bloom (also designed by MuseLAB).

All of these thoughtfully curated pieces rest on Autumn, a hand-knotted carpet made of handspun high twist pure wool with handspun pure silk accents from the Nouveau series of Cocoon fine rugs. “Each piece of furniture exudes a certain amount of rawness in its tactility; the idea behind bringing together these pieces was to experience their materiality and silhouettes, with visual and physical interactions,” says Huzefa.

 

The next stunner space is the “cook and eat” zone, for the closeted epicurean owner.  An open steel kitchen sits confidently in the open space, created in collaboration with Kuche 7. The kitchen countertop extends to form a dining table that seats four gastronomes on the Mungaru dining chairs by Phantom Hands and under a linear cluster of thin pendant lights.

“This happens to be the most favourite space of the home for us. A panoramic landscape dons the wall that bookends this open plan. A nondescript portal leads to the wet kitchen and the dry yard. Here we have a working countertop in East Indian Walnut wood that contrasts beautifully with the grey cementitious walls by Concrete Works India. Across the portal to the wet kitchen is the door to the powder bathroom,” explains Jasem.

The other end of the home is the sleeping space, comprising of a simple wooden bed with a backrest upholstered with faux tan leather; the bedside tables are merely shelves sans drawers. Across from the bed is Nougat II, a floor mirror by MuseLAB and the Phantom Hands Kangaroo chair that beautifully pairs with the Mungaru side table. FN Souza and Rabin Mondal pair up to don the other wall that bookends this home. A pair of wardrobes flank another doorway that leads to walk-in for athletic gear. The light grey vitrified tiles that continue into the bathroom walls and on the dado beautifully offset the matte black sanitary fittings and fixtures from Vitra.

“We have eliminated the false ceiling completely and instead relied on a very simple grid of exposed conduits with cylindrical architectural lights,” puts in Huzefa.

“This particular project is extremely special for us as we are rarely presented with such bold briefs and bold clients. The process and our response to the programmatic requirement warrant us to focus on nothingness, yet be mindful of the essential elements. It made us think laterally; we had to de-clutter not only the space but also our minds to design for what one needs and not what one wants,” say the designers.

And the home and the owner proclaim: “I want you to see me ‘naked’, unapologetic, gritty but honest.”

Project Fact File

Project Name: Naked

Principal Architects: Huzefa Rangwala, Jasem Pirani

Design Team: Namrata Tidke, Huzefa Rangwala, Jasem Pirani

Area: 1000sft

Location: Mumbai

Year of Completion: November 2020

PMC: Impact Interiors

Photography: Sameer Tawde