Designer by profession, educator by heart - Aarti Patel

Co-founder of era architects and associates, Aarti Patel is an experienced architect and an educator of design. She believes that fashion has a deep impact on the personalisation of homes. CW DesignBuild spoke to Aarti about personalising homes, design philosophy and more. What is your vision for era architects and associates? To be recognised as a respected architectural firm, to provide client focused service through our responsible practice of Architecture with honesty and integrity. We venture each day for supremacy in bringing our valued clients’ proposals to life. What are the key changes you have observed in the design industry over the last decade? Technology changes over every decade. This pandemic year was digital due to its rapid growth leading to testing designers’ ability to adapt like never before. When you think about rapidly changing technology, smartphones come first to mind, especially given how often we’re expected to update our devices. Visual design, screen size optimisation have all been influenced by the introduction of smartphones. Smartphones are used in the daily lives of so many people that designs need to be upgraded towards the different screen sizes and potential of these devices. 2020 will go down in history as a year when the entire world had to change. Since design touches virtually every surface of our lives, the design industry needs to be ready to adapt to changes as they come. It has proved that everyone can work remotely. How would you define your style of design? How do you ensure that your projects bear your signature? Our firm offers innovative design, expertise and practical solutions, definitely keeping in mind the social, economic, environmental and aesthetic issues involved. We believe that strength in architecture emerges when there is an emotional connection to the work. Our design style is efficient and balanced. It avoids both extravagance and meanness so as to strike a wise and measured balance. The material palette is spare and judiciously put together. Materials are selected for their appropriateness to the task – their richness. Tell us about the influence of fashion and clothing on your curated designs. Yes, I believe that fashion, like any art, is designed with intention. The way to present yourself to a client shows how professional your approach to the work is. Your appeal shows how perfect you are in yourself which would anyhow reflect on the client's work. I mostly prefer a combination of a maximum of plane shades with some minimal geometric or floral eye catching shades. All architectural or interior work is rather a curated look which we as an architect frame them functionally and aesthetically to its final product. How do you personalise each of your curated designs? For architectural work I go only for earthen shades and natural building material palette which easily blends with the environment. For interior work the permanent fixed panels or modules designed are furnished with mostly natural tones of either brown or grey shades which contrast with the furnishing fabrics which can be changed over a period of time. We do share our selection opinion to clients with options, after their approvals we move ahead. Tell us more about the use of the latest technology softwares in your projects and how have they aided your work? Latest technology softwares use helps us to translate our vision for work to the client with ease. Our 2D work is created on Autocad software. For 3D we use sketchup to understand the basic massing and render it in lumion software. Final 3D work is outsourced. Photoshop is used for presentation and editing work. Tell us more about your experience as a design educator and how has that shaped you as a professional? Though being a Design Educator the teaching learning process is always both ways transferred. So many times I get to learn the management part with patience through the process of teaching which directly helps in professional practice too. As an educator it has helped me to refine the skills of presentation confidently with time management. How do you approach design to accommodate aesthetic and functionality in commercial projects? Our firm always has a design approach that has a ‘function follows form’ concept. This has always been fortunate enough to accommodate both client requirements with aesthetic appeal. We prioritize the requirements with function and then frame the form accordingly. How do you incorporate sustainability in your work? We prefer to select locally available material which indirectly helps for cost effective projects. Also we hire skilled local agencies to work on site. We design climate responsive projects in which we precisely work on intake of natural air ventilation, sunlight and wind direction. Thus achieve sustainability in our work. What changes have you perceived in your clients (in terms of demands, awareness, aesthetics, etc.)? Generally all clients nowadays approach with their own imaginary ideas which they want and have already observed somewhere either physically or through net images. People are mostly fond of travelling where they many times relate the surroundings to be indulged in their house design. So they are quite aware of their demands and likings. When they meet for the first time we analyse their thoughts and present them practically on paper for further discussions. Tell us about the projects you are working on currently. We are working on commercial projects, educational institute design, hospital project, Individual bungalow projects, housing scheme, farm house design, corporate office building and many others. What advice would you like to give to aspiring architects/designers? As aspiring architects one should have an experience of practical field work along with office work which will eventually build confidence further in working as an individual.