Spaces possess a sentience of their own, revealed not in spectacle but in steady restraint. In a sea of colour that appears all-encompassing, one might anticipate pomp. Yet at Geetanjali Salon's newest outpost in Ahmedabad, that assumption quickly dissolves. Shaped by the hands and minds at Metanoia Designs LLP, the space has a singular ask of its patrons - to leave every notion of convention at the doorstep. This ethos finds clear expression in client Sumit Israni's creative brief to principal architects Shivangi Sharma and Prakhar Jain.
The project's name, Saanjh (twilight in Hindi), emerges from the space's tryst with colour and its ability to conjure a world of its own within these walls - a time held between light and darkness that carries one into an otherworldly realm. During this fleeting hour, the sun hands the sky over to the moon and the world is washed in a soft radiance, neither fully illuminated nor cast in shadow.
The spatial journey emerges at the reception, the first space within which the architects announce their conscious departure from the expected. Fiery red Agra sandstone sweeps across the floors like stretches of earth, frozen in time. The glossy, often visually dense signage retreats into retirement, its place taken by a sandstone and micro-concrete retail shelving system, articulated with sleek stainless steel guide rails. The desk reads as a sculptural installation, its solid sandstone mass offset by Corten steel signage, reinforcing the site's material honesty. The stretched, luminous ceiling feature by Vibrant Technik recurs across the plan, bathing the rooms in diffused light.
