Sapna Agarwal

Sapna Agarwal is a pioneer in the world of architecture. This blog is based on an interview conducted by the Best Creators, which contextualize design and design practice. Sapna, an interior designer, was quizzed on a variety of topics in order to learn more about the people behind this incredible industry. The recorded pointers were an eye-opening experience that was meant to be shared with the fraternity so that everyone may learn and develop from one another’s experiences. In a creative-driven business, Sapna embodied the ever-evolving nature of thought.

She’s looked into every trade because she was already interested in learning about this. She is a curious individual. She recalls being quite inventive with her assignments, “whether it was with my book or the covers of my notebooks.” She has had offers from gymnastics, swimming, commercial arts, playing music, studying for medical tests, and even learning paragliding since she graduated from high school and college. She is usually eager to try new things and learn new things rapidly. When it came to competitions, though, she ended up saying no because it was just her personality. She’d just walk away since she wasn’t interested any longer. She pursued an interior design diploma after graduating. And this was the turning point of her life. She simply knew she had to do it. She enjoyed doing and continues to enjoy it even after two years of design diploma. As a result, the journey’s humble beginning has led us to where we are now, as it always does.

She loves herself and this is one philosophy that propel her career forward.  Apart from that, she has a winning attitude, a determination to perform better, an industrious disposition, and the ability to create learning skills, possibly because she believes creativity is a very subtle rate because creativity can transform and it’s not very deep root in a soul. It’s not something that a person may be able to acquire. She has a very detail-oriented nature. She would pay attention to everything when she enters into our room. So even when she listens to people, she always read between the lines she would not come up conversation taking what the other people would have come out with. Her perspective differs significantly from those of others. Because interior design is also a business, we will be able to survive in this market even if we are not professionals. A designer’s capacity to multitask and learn about many design trends is something that is always required of them.

When we talk of design assets, we are merely toughing the surface. So, let’s not get into design assets right now. Let’s have a conversation about life here. She believes that life follows its own path. And she’s still a fantastic sailor. Every time the wave came crashing down, she grew stronger and stronger.

When she was a kid, she wrote down a poem and she copied this poem from a very known author. And since then, it is there in front of her eyes and bed always. She truly believes that when things go wrong, when the road, you project seems all when they are low and the depths are high and you want to smile, but you have to sign when care is pressing you down a bit rest, if you must, but don’t you quit’ she summarizes this entirely.  She reads and writes lots of articles and magazines.

She is a deep thinker who does not believe in exaggerating her sessions, which occur every 15 days. This is for all departments. She firmly thinks that without learning, there can be no growth. So, learning inculcates in all culture all the time. And it’s not just about the organization, it’s also about the site.

Design has four stages- preparation, incubation, elimination, and verification. So there has to be a process, one two answers. Ideas are always a solution to our problem.  Preparation, incubation, elimination, and verification are the four stages of design. As a result, there must be a procedure, one two answers. Our problems are always solved by ideas. Allowing our mind to think or work on a problem this stage is incubation.  So, you start working towards a direction word. So, I would say have a lot of SOPs learning. In our company, we have a lot of procedures to follow. So, if we feel organized, and our organization is organized, the procedure will appear to be a piece of cake. As far as we can tell, we’ll be burying our heads in a heap of garbage that leads nowhere. As a result, we constantly improve our SOPs based on feedback from vendors, team members, and clients.

Every site has an aura.  How we feel about a room when we first walk in reveals a lot about it. Do we truly feel happy, loved, and invited, or do we have a strong desire to leave that place? To a large extent, this emotion can be generated through design and functioning, but it actually transcends beyond those bounds. It’s not just about design or functionality, which has been highlighted in every book of interiors but it goes beyond that. So, the design and execution process have a role to play, but it isn’t everything. When any space is designed, the client in itself will feel it with all five senses, decide the sounds, smell, touch, feel, and taste.

This would tell the client how he feels about the area in the end. It’s not just about how the client sees our design; it’s also about how he feels about it. As designers, we must achieve this. It’s not only about making these things look nice and work well. It’s not about what the customer sees. It’s also about how the client feels when they really desire the area. It’s not just about seeing or looking at functionality when it comes to designing. It’s more of a multi-sensory connection. When the brain would create a memory or probably a meaning out of it.

So, it’s not just about that physical design, but it will be kind of create a mood that whole space will kind of create a mood or energy, which our brain perceives. But a lot of it is subconscious. We only look at design as a conscious element. A lot of it is subconscious, which tend to forget and only look at how it looks, how it functions. We tend to forget that the design also has a mind. We tend to merely look at the body and the environment, which are both part of the design, and forget that perception and cognition are also part of the design.

So, the mind, body, and environment will all work together to create that experience. So, what a client really wants is an experience. He could simply be expressing his desire for a wonderful design, or he could simply be stating that he wants his house to appear like this. But he is really looking at an amazing experience. Designer has to understand all the three aspects and not just about designing and making it look beautiful.  The client may only say a few words, but it is our job to read between the lines.

She keeps her eyes wide awake at all times. For example, even when her housekeeper is cleaning the utensils, she keeps her eyes open, observing how she uses various items, recording the results, evaluating and improving the possibilities, and putting them into practice on the project. In the end, she learns about life in general, how it flows, adapts, and reacts. She is an excellent listener, and it is the only skill she has consciously learned.

The interior design industry is still evolving and is quite disorganized. There are many aspects of the Indian industry that need to be improved, such as pricing, which is not standardized and the price of a similar piece of furniture might vary dramatically depending on where it is purchased. We might just buy one, with the same design accessible in one shop for one lakh and possibly the same design and material application available in another for around three lakhs.  So, the customers will expect deliverable within a given price range, while designers will fight to find the perfect product at the right price by bargaining and negotiation.

As a result, there is a sense of mistrust. Decorators and manufacturers should work together to build a standardized sourcing industry. There is a need for mass furniture production, similar to what China does, or for furnishing units. And while this would imply a little more quality control and less deviation from designs, the interior design business remains unsophisticated and requires a lot of growth. Finally, customers should be able to pay a fair price for genuine goods, which is now unavailable. The sector is currently led by a few executives who set their own prices.

Currently, the industry is led by a few leaders with their own prices. And it’s not fair for everybody in the market to not be able to reach the right source if they don’t have the right channels to move on. So, there are a lot of things about the industry that should be changed.

For any aspiring architect, there is only one way to succeed: learn, learn, and learn. There are no exceptions to this rule. Anything and everything can be learned from magazines, books, courses, design, fraternity, bling, interest, nature, and travel. As a result, the more we learn, the better we get, and there is no other way to achieve success. Everything else is a shortcut with a limited lifespan and false success. If you take a shortcut and get to a certain height but don’t stay there, you’ve failed. As a result, unless we master the fundamentals, our expansion will be unsustainable.

She has learned throughout the course of her 20-year career that we must be passionate about what we do, especially for those students. When you observe a porter at work, you’ll see that each design he creates has a passion. It may not be important to the person who’s watching, but it is important for him to improve each piece. So, the desire to make the second item better than the first is the first step toward becoming a winner. And practice is a key factor in achieving perfection. And no matter how talented as a kid, one is in the school, when one comes into the actual field of career, then it is the practice which will make it worthwhile.

For example, Leo Messi was not born with a better right knee or left foot than anyone else in the world, but it is what he chose to do every day after school, or perhaps every weekend, that has propelled him to where he is now. The key thing is that these students make a commitment to themselves and then attain their career goals. So just keep reminding yourself that eight hours a day is five years. Four hours a day equals ten years if you want to reach 10,000 hours. And while two hours a day equals 20 years; they will still be living in 20 or even 30 years.

It’s all about setting a goal and preparing for college from the beginning of your third life. That is what will determine the outcome. It’s only a matter of studying, practicing, and following your passion. There is no going back if we hold on. There is nothing in the world that can stop you from achieving your goals.

They must have price control over everything, as well as standardization. Because the market is not particularly transparent, a great deal of transparency is required. Mass production and quality control are required. The quality control standards must increase, and the mindset of “it will be done” must be abandoned by vendors. There needs to be a higher level of professionalism in this.

When the majority of turnkey contractors perform a decent job, quality standards must increase, but then there is a large market. And there are shorts that they apply, which really have to stop be short. They don’t just weigh down on the contractor who’s implementing the site, they weigh down on the architect and interior designer also because ultimately, we are responsible for that quality, that quality of the site. And a contractor’s or vendor’s blunder would eventually become an architectural interior designer’s blunder.

We would be able to create a better design, a better implementation process, if we all held hands and worked with one simple thinking process of making the site more efficient, making these sites more quality regulated.

There hasn’t been a one defining moment, but there have been many. The best part about interior design is that no two days are ever the same. So, we might just go furniture and accessory shopping one day. We might just spend the following day making designs for my clients. We may just travel to Abu Dhabi for a client meeting on the third day. What’s not to love about that? She enjoys watching ideas come to life and seeing them become a reality. It has been her delight to bring so much color into the lives of others, whether in their lives or in their environments.

Every breath she takes in this life of happiness and thankfulness is a defining moment for her. So, there isn’t just one defining moment. Every moment is so beautiful that she has no complaints about anything about her job, and her entire life is beautiful.

Leaders led by an example with the peace in their mind. And that is the underlying statement, they have to have peace in their mind. There is always a problem. It’s not one moment that we’re not dealing with a problem because had there been no problem, then there would be no solution and it would be anything and everything. But a good leader is a one who would focus on this solution rather than be problems. We deal with so many people and so many clients and vendors. So, the one who’s focusing on finding a solution is, is an effective leader.

She is a great fan of John F. Kennedy. So, there is one statement that he made, which say that leadership and learning are indispensable to each other and that’s very true. She has observed that in her entire life, when the learning happens, you become a better leader. We learn to learn from the mistakes. One learns to you know, if one learns to effectively manage people, not just by trying to change their attitude, but also learning that their attitude is a reflection of their lifestyle. So, accepting that and effectively managing VP work is something that makes one a great leader.