CUBS CONVERSATIONS with Badri Poonawalla: "Place of Workship"

Every piece of furniture and every nook and corner of this space talks of time and era well spent by @Natasha Poonawalla and @Alisha Poonawalla at their childhood home. They decided to convert this childhood home of theirs into a cosy Co-Working Space. A complete #WabiSabi experience. Every crack and crevice has a story to tell. Here is #cubspaces in conversation with Mr.Badri, the owner and designer of @placeofworkship, a beautifully designed co-lab in the heart of #punecity

Here is CUBS in conversation with Badri.

CUBS: With no formal degree in interior design how did you make a debut into the interior world?

Badri: It all started when I renovated my own house 20 years ago. I re used a lot of the old furniture, created my own designs and without making any structural change, I completely changed the look of the house. My late brother highly appreciated my work and encouraged me to take up interior designing and furniture professional. This was only the trigger though… Growing up, anything to do with Design, Art and Craft and Geometry always intrigued me. In fact, Art and Craft was my strongest point in school. To add to that, 22 years of experience in the fashion and clothing industry gave me a sound sense of colour combinations. The rest was all about learning through trial and error while physically working with my carpenters and machines, hands on.

CUBS: What particular aspects of your background and upbringing have shaped your design principles and philosophies?

Badri: I came from a huge family in which all the elderly members I grew up with incidentally had very colonial tastes. They all had a refined sense of dressing and lived a stylish lifestyle. Naturally, spaces in their homes were also very tasteful curated with collector’s items, exquisite show pieces. These are the homes I grew up in and they had they their effect on my sense of interior designing. Another late cousin of mine taught me a lot about furniture and interiors and the knowledge he shared with me has had a large impact on the way I approach a space.

CUBS: Why the name Place of Workship?

Badri: My daughter suggested the name ‘Place of Workship’. Clearly, derived from the phrase ‘place of worship’, it represented a place of peace, calm, good vibes, meditative energies, concentration and focus – all of which is something we wanted the co-workers who would eventually work here, to experience when they use the space. ‘Place of Workship’ also symbolises a sense of integrity, faith and belief in your own potential, creativity, passions and hard work… a philosophy that all of us in the family live by.

CUBS: Your Collab Space is a perfect blend of where contemporary meets tradition. What was the thought process behind the design of Place of Workship?

Badri: Coming to think of it, the space was a traditionally designed home which needed to be made suitable for the contemporary co-worker, so it had to be a little bit of both. While renovating the space, what I essentially had in mind is the young people who would be using this space. At the same time, I was quite sure I didn’t want to disturb the quaint old vibe that the place originally had. For example, I threw in some vibrant hues, I chose earthy shades. I made provision for all the facilitiesthe modern day co-worker requires at the desk but made the desks in pure teak wood. I maintained the mosaic tiling our home had but made the furniture minimal and neat.

CUBS: So you’ve had a lot of opportunity to experiment on your own space. Can you talk a little bit about the process of makeover from a home to a Collab space? Also we see a lot of re-use and refurbishing at Place of Workship. How did you manage all?

Badri: One of our major priorities while doing up the place was to cut costs by re-usnig every possible existing element of the house. Incidentally, one of my stronger points as an interior designer is to re-position or re-purpose existing and available resources in a completely new way. Naturally, this requires a lot of trial and error, imagination and experimentation – all of which have always been a major part of my learning process as a designer and still are. Moreover, given that I had lived in and personally renovated the place in the past, I knew exactly where I had used what material and how it could be re-purposed. For example, I converted door panels to table tops, window grills to see-through partitions, wooden railings to drawer facades and so on…

CUBS: Do you have any other thoughts about what a collaborative office environment is or isn’t or should be?

Badri: I’ve always felt that your place of work must never in the least way feel restrictive, closed or congested. It is important for it to be airy, green and well lit with natural sunlight to give you a sense of space and openness. These simple yet important elements can uplift the working mind and its productivity tremendously. And a simple philosophy I have grown to follow is to bring more of the outdoor, indoor and vice versa. I try to have as many windows facing the sunrise or sunset, keeping in mind the wind directions for better ventilation. I like to add some indoor plants to my interiors as well and whilst I like to curate a cozy seating corner, I am also mindful of leaving enough empty spaces.

CUBS: So what advice do you have for the Gen Z, who may work in corporate environments that aren’t terribly supportive of this sort of thing?

Badri: I don’t believe that I can have any advice to offer to the Gen Z, or to anyone for that matter. I think they know exactly what they want. However, if I had to give them any advice at all, it would be to open their minds to working in environments that most resemble their natural surroundings. I often hear youngsters say that, ‘I am a different person in office and a different person outside of it… That’s what the corporate environment does to you!’. These statements sometime worry me. I wonder if these ‘strictly corporate’ environments are influencing their inhabitants into becoming someone they’d rather not be. I would strongly recommend for people to work in environments in which they feel comfortable enough to be themselves, in which they feel at home. It is environments such as these which bring out the best in us. It is this sort of a comfortable environment that we have created at Place of Workship.