Senior Projects Director at Innovatione India Projects LLP (Interview PART-1)
Pratima Chawla, a Former leading Interior Designer from Aeon, who has devoted more than 18 years of her designing and creative career to the pursuit of fine architecture. Her humble and kind spirit is a powerful force, a clear reflection of the many milestones that she has achieved as an Interior Designer and as a person.
As the Best Creators asked her about her experiences, she was enthusiastic about sharing clean-cut, precise, and insightful wisdom for the entire fraternity to benefit from. Having dedicated the last 6 and half years to Aeon, her firm, she also spoke about the many organizations that have helped shape her views about the industry. She attributes her successes to definitive mentorship and the fortune of having worked with great people in the industry. Her dynamic character is truly an inspiration for us, with her summing up the industry in simplified and easily understandable terms.
“We do corporates, recreational areas, institutional areas, High end residence and Hospitality projects. We are into all the areas. It’s not into particularly one segment which helps an interior designer to grow as an individual in terms of new challenges and detailing to be dealt in each project It’s a nice experience for all of us actually, and there is no end to learning, the challenges being faced everyday with the growth of the project help us grow in the one or the other way. The moment you enter into a new project, there’s new learning for it.
Great design is not only about aesthetics. The design must be complete from all aspects. It is not only that a good-looking object is enough, it has to be functional and user friendly – at the same time. -WOW is the first word every company / an individual looks at when they appoint an interior designer / architect in their project – When you’re delivering – a project, the usefulness has to come out, just like any other product. Few designers work from a perspective where the aesthetics are the main focus and they build it from there. For us, and for me specifically, at day one, when we start with point one, we take care of all the aspects like Aesthetics (as main focus) along with its functional aspects (like taking care of complete MEP services and challenges along with the same) and green aspect as well so that the products / elements being used are environment friendly (green certified products), so that at the end the project turns to be is a WOW projects – and fulfils -client’s expectation -.”
Pratima Chawla spoke about the human perspective and the design perspective and attributed the quality of design to its user-friendly people-friendly approach. She conveys good design as benefitting the end-user experience and retaining the objectives of a client.
“From a human perspective, I have implemented a lot of things. First, when you get introduced to a client, you have to understand them thoroughly. You have to dig into their portfolio so that you understand their nature of work, Culture they follow and exact requirements along with human nature of decision makers. To start the work as a team, The foremost thing is to be humble and kind because without that you cannot move on. Being humble and kind leads to better teamwork as well. Being a leader, to deliver I need a team and to move forward to higher steps I need to take my team along me. – The saying of the one-man army does not go with our industry specifically. Because if I am leading a team of designers and I’m not able to deliver the project, there’s no point, right? Carrying forward, taking all of them, brainstorming, learning from them, and giving your learning to them are the major things that actually are being implemented and that’s how the show is on. This has reproduced the results, and the efficiency of my team members has grown, by moving and taking all of them together.
From a design perspective, and a human perspective, there’s no junior or no senior. Yes, you have to respect your seniors and there should be a level of seniority, but you must respect them all equally. Once you treat them nicely, all of them give you some of the other learning. From a design perspective, aesthetics should be there, but the design has to be equally functional and appealing to the client’s demands. That way, the client is much more comfortable in terms of accepting the complete handover of the project.” To be continued>>