This was our first corporate project. We were commissioned to design furniture for a corporate office’s executive floor. This included desks for the company heads, a reception table and a formal sofa for the waiting area.

This project was the first time we experimented with materials that we had not explored before. We avoided brass which was our metal by choice for it’s earthiness and decided to go for stainless steel. We wanted to have materials that would be easier to maintain and gave a clean modern feel to all the pieces.

The desks were envisioned as large sculptures imbibing qualities of strength and dignity. These sculptures were envisioned as a testament to the respect that the founders of the company had achieved over years.

The form were inspired from images that symbolized greatness and struggle: the tension in the runner’s first stride, atlas holding the weight of the world on his shoulders and the shape of the USS Starship enterprise.

At the same time, visual fluidity was adopted to soften the strong theme. The lights for the tables were designed to be in sync with the cantilevers of the latter; 60 running feet of panels that adorned the walls were partitioned in divisions of 8 feet with varying blocks of wood pattered in a golden ratio to create an overall cohesion.

This golden ratio pattern was utilized in the reception table in a different material to extend the cohesion into the reception area. The table was envisioned as two forms of contrasting materials intertwined, sinking and cradling each other, resting on slender wooden legs. The legs were inspired by the fluted columns that Le Corbusier used to emphasise the strength of structure in the united d'habitation building in Marseille.

Moreover, instead of having disjointed furniture scattered in the reception, sofas, side tables were collectively designed as a single sculptural form, fluid in form and light to view yet fully equipped. Instead of having separate sofas, side tables etc in the reception area, we envisioned all these elements amalgamated into a single sculptural form.