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Design studio Roar aimed to create a “world-class government building” for Ajman Ruler’s Court in the UAE, which holds the office of Sheikh Humaid bin Rashid Al Nuaimi. More
UAE-based studio Roar has paid homage to the Escher-esque stepwells of India in its interior design for Jaipur Rugs’ showroom in Dubai, which features cascading, rainbow-coloured staircases.
The Jaipur Rugs showroom, the Indian brand’s first in the Middle East, is located in the creative district of Aserkal, in one of the former industrial area’s previously abandoned warehouses.
Roar’s design for the space nods to the architecture of Jaipur, the rug manufacturer’s home city, and in particular its famous stepwells — reservoirs built with staggered terraces and dizzying sets of stairs all the way down into their depths.
The Jaipur Rugs Dubai showroom is designed with reference to India’s stepwells”The design concept was born from a simple sketch that I did after my first meeting with the client,” Roar founder and architect Pallavi Dean told Dezeen.
“I was so inspired by the stepwells that I’d seen in Jaipur during my first visit that I wanted to bring them to life in my design,” she added.
“I wanted to strip the idea to its bare minimum though, and work within its architectural purity, in order to avoid any plain pastiche.”
The stairs are carpeted in a gradient of rainbow huesIn Dean’s design, the repeating staircases feature across three of the walls, making a striking impression in the double-height space while connecting the ground-floor browsing area to the offices and sales suites on the mezzanine.
The arches that are typical to stepwells also feature in the 780-square-metre showroom, forming doorways or alcoves wallpapered with decorative rugs.
The hues in these rug displays are echoed in the carpet on the stairs, which is rendered in a jewel-toned rainbow colour gradient starting at indigo on one side of the space and ending in ruby red.
Some of the stairs read to alcoves with rug displaysDean called the construction of the staircases a “structural feat” that required navigating challenging approval processes.
“We had to ensure the steps were safe to use by installing a glass balustrade, which gives the impression that they’re floating when they’re actually carefully enclosed!” she said.
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Also nestled between the staircases on the ground floor are two rooms described as immersive experiences, the Sapphire and Emerald rooms, which are covered floor to ceiling with rugs custom-made by Jaipur Rugs’ weavers as part of the brand’s Manchaha intiative.
In the project, the artisans design the rugs themselves spontaneously on the loom as they weave, using leftover yarn from the industry.
Two “immersive” rooms are carpeted in rugs designed by Jaipur Rugs’ weaversThey would typically use a broader range of colours for the rugs in this series, but were briefed to work with emerald and sapphire tones for the showroom and given the precise dimensions.
The lack of sound in these rooms, created by the acoustic properties of the rugs, adds a dramatic dimension to visitors’ experience, according to Dean.
One room is emerald and the other is sapphire huedNext to the rooms, along the fourth wall, is the showroom’s rug library, with custom-made sliding panels allowing visitors to browse freely.
The walls and floors are finished with a warm-grey micro-cement and textured paint, forming a neutral base for the colourful features.
Metallic rose gold features in doorframes, cabinetry and other details, in another reference to Jaipur, which is sometimes called the Pink City.
Metallic rose gold touches nod to Jaipur’s nickname of the “Pink City””All of our designs come from a place of empathy, and this one is no exception,” Dean said. “We always endeavour to understand what the client is trying to achieve – here, the client was trying to create a bold statement for their first flagship store in the Middle East.”
“It also had to be an experiential space, which can be intuitively navigated by its users. This is why, for example, we decided to build bespoke rug libraries with sliding doors for clients to flick through instead of having the rugs stacked on the floor, which, in my opinion, are so inconvenient to browse!”
The showroom is located in a formerly abandoned warehouseDean founded Roar in 2013. The studio’s past projects include the interiors for cafe Drop Coffee and the Nursery of the Future, both in Dubai.
Last year it announced it was expanding into digital design after purchasing two plots of land for a showroom in the metaverse.
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Dubai-based Studio N has created a lighting scheme to emphasise the natural materials used in the Sensasia Stories Spa designed by interiors studio Roar in the Kempinski Hotel Mall in the UAE.
As the spa has no natural light, Studio N focussed on highlighting the variety of materials used in the space, which includes grey slate, stone, wood and hessian wallpaper.
“We were very conscious of how we illuminated each of the different surfaces and how light could help emphasise the natural characteristics of materials”, the studio told Dezeen.
The central space features illuminated archesOverall the studio aimed to meet spa lighting guidelines while maintaining a calm and peaceful atmosphere in the space.
As the Sensasia Stories Spa is located in a busy mall, the lighting designers wanted the entrance space and reception area to act as a calm area of transition from retail to spa environment.
Concealed low-power and high-lumen LED lights were used to create a soothing environment, with under-counter lighting used for soft, ambient light in the the reception.
Strip lights illuminate stairs at the spa poolThe 270-square-metre spa contains eight treatment rooms, along with an ice fountain, herb saunas, steam rooms, and pool, that are arranged around a central courtyard.
In this central space interiors studio Roar and Studio N created a large arched structure that contains illuminated arches. “We used linear grazers to pick out the texture of stone walls,” said Studio N.
Concealed low-power lights are used in treatment roomsStrip lights were integrated into the pool’s stairs and, in other areas, smaller lights and decorative light fixtures were used to create illuminated accent walls.
A recessed gobo projector was used to replicate the movement of water, which the studio said was “a subtle reference to the natural world”.
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The studio used recessed wide-beam pinhole downlights to provide general lighting to the space in a minimal style.
The lighting of each area of the spa can be controlled via a DALI lighting control system which allows lighting to be changed between lighting scenes. Treatment rooms can be changed between ‘mood lighting’, ‘treatment’ and ‘cleaning scenes’.
Studio N used LED lights throughout the spaStudio N is shortlisted in the architectural lighting design category at the Dezeen awards 2022 alongside Liftshutz Davidson Sandiland and Leo Villareal’s Illuminated River installation and a theatre venue clad in luminous tiles in China, by Brandston Partnership.
The photography is by The Oculis Project.
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Design office Roar Studio combined industrial materials such as concrete and stainless steel with decorative terrazzo and broken ceramic tiles for Drop Coffee, a cafe in Dubai’s Dar Al Wasl Mall.The Dubai-based studio was asked to design an interior that would suit the flow of visitors to the cafe, who enter the space from two different entrances – one connected to the outdoors and one to the mall.
The bar area is framed by a wooden structure
It chose to keep the design simple by focusing on the materials used and framed the bar area of the cafe in pale wood and LED lights to create an eye-catching centrepiece.
“This is the second outlet for this homegrown Emirati brand,” Roar Studio founder Pallavi Dean told Dezeen.
“Their main drive was to achieve a minimal space where the coffee bar is a central feature and creates a theatrical moment – the making of the coffee is at the front and centre stage.”
A broken-tile mosaic decorates the main wall
The ceiling of the cafe is concrete and the studio also painted the walls with a concrete paint finish, which is complemented by a terrazzo-effect tiled stone floor in grey and white hues.
Its colours and shapes are picked up on the main wall, which was decorated with a mosaic of broken ceramic tiles that form an abstract pattern similar to the floor.
“We sourced basic white tiles from Rakceramics – a local manufacturer – which were then broken on-site to compose a patterned wall,” Dean explained.
“We aren’t trying to reinvent the wheel by using broken tiles – our idea was to form a counterpoint to the terrazzo effect porcelain flooring as though the chips of the broken tiles were used in the flooring.”
Stainless steel was used for the countertops
A large counter in pale wood is connected to the ceiling by beams in the same material, framing the bar area of the store. The counter is covered in stainless steel, which was chosen for both practical and aesthetic reasons.
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“The coffee bar has a stainless steel countertop which is extremely sturdy and hygienic but also allows the light to bounce through the space because of its reflectivity,” Dean said.
Orange clamp-style tables for a quick coffee break
Around the base of the bar, lighted skirting made out of glass blocks give the impression that it is floating above the ground. By the side of the bar, the enclosed kitchen area features a wall made from matching glass blocks, enabling visitors to see the silhouettes of Drop Coffee’s staff while they work.
The studio also chose to work with certain materials to help create a less noisy atmosphere for the visitors.
“The ceiling is acoustic foam sprayed, an effect that adds to the industrial aesthetic and helps muffle the noise in the open-plan space – not to mention the noise generated by the coffee machines,” Dean explained.
Grey hues and pale wood decorate the space
Drop Coffee already has one cafe in Dubai and the plan is for each of the branches to be associated with a different colour, with burnt orange used for Roar Studios’ design.
The colour has been dotted throughout the space and was used for seating as well as on clamp-style tables set along one wall for customers who want to have a quick coffee standing up.
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Roar Studio was founded in 2013 as Pallavi Dean Interiors by Dean, who was a Dezeen Awards 2020 judge, and rebranded as Roar Studio in 2018. It has previously designed a high-tech learning space for children in Dubai and issued a white paper about the ways in which Covid-19 will impact the design of schools and colleges.
Photography is by Oculis Project.
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