Interior Design Portfolio

ANANYA AGARWALLA SELECTED WORKS 2021/22 INTERIOR DESIGN

Ananya Agarwalla

Curious, enterprising and lively, I am an Interior Design Graduate with an enthusiasm for the ergonomics and economics of designing functional spaces. Socially conscious design is what first prompted my interest in the subject area. Having come from India, I have seen communities struggle to meet their spatial needs, often impacting their well-being and productivity levels. I want to change this present reality, which led to studying Interior Design. Through my skills and background, I wish to design and work on projects that will contribute to conscious change in society through functional and impactful spatial practices.

Design philosophy centred on the needs of the people and the community, my final major project explored the accessibility of public toilets in London along with their redesigning to meet people’s needs comfortably. Dazed Digital kindly featured the project, and it was also showcased during London Design Festival 2021.

Design functionality is critical to my design ethos. I firmly believe that a space should allow its daily users to feel comfortable and welcomed and allow for sensorily engagement while using the space, irrespective of size.

As an Interior Designer, I develop creative and innovative design concepts supporting a breadth of project activities, including site analysis, contextual research, surveying, design development through othrographic drawings, material study and project design proposal.

This page illustrates some of my work that was displayed and recognised across London. In 2021, my final major project was picked up by Dazed Digital as well as the London Design Festival for addressing the vast inequalities in public toilets among gender types and the biased urban planning practices that often ignore the needs of women.

DAZED Digital - 16th July 2021

Climate Emergency Network: Material Heroes London Design Festival 2021 - 16th September 2021

Fenchurch Street Sky Garden - July - October 2021

Fenchurch Street Sky Garden July - October 2021

01. The BRB Project

Year: May 2021

Location: London, UK

Type: Interior Design

Role: Design Conceptualisation, proposal and visualisation

The v (Be Right Back) Project is a design proposal for a public toilet model trying to address the scarcity of public conveniences in cities and instill a sense of equality through its configuration. It focuses on understanding the long-term problem of gender equality and how limited access to public spaces to women and other gender types has contributed to a more male-oriented urban planning.

Design Context

1700 Public

Toilets closed in the UK between 2006-2016

97 Billion Hours spent finding a safe place to relieve themselves 1 in 3 Women lack acess to safe public toilets

The design brief asked to design/create a structure that would stand the test of time and be relevant for the many generations to come. That’s how the inception of designing a public toilet was born. It is a space that will be needed as long as man exists and given the vast discrimination as reflected in the data, it was the perfect design intervention. The intention of designing a toilet was also to rethink the current structure and design one that is more suitable for the female body.

Conceptualisation & Visualisation

Rammed Earth was the hero material of this project owing to its low carbon footprint as well as its financial feasibility. Its a long lasting material that supports the idea of sustainability, environmental consciousness and economic construction practices.

Design iterations and explorations

Interior view of the proposed toilet cubicle

Material Representation through a foctused visualisation of the proposed interiors

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Technical Drawings

The toilet has been designed to resolve the persisting flaws in the current infrastructure, such as unequal wait times, safety, spatial movement within cubicles and easy accessibility. The structure of the public toilet is a fresh take on the typical cubicle system of toilets, build to maintain a sense of anonymity and safety.

Space between the two wall structures. Intention was to provide an added layer of security but also ensure transparancey.

Axonometric representation of the toilet structure

1. Timber Roof with ceiling windows

2. Timber Truff for strength

3. Timber Sideboards for added safety and to prevent peeking

4. Timber Beam

5,6,7. 450mm Wall thickness of Rammed Earth

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8. Concrete flooring with ramps on both sides

Sectional representation of the toilet structure

Ceiling windows for Natural Light and Ventilation

Contextual visualisation of the proposed public toilet on site

02. Dissertation

Year: February 2021

Location: India

Type: Dissertation

Role: Research, analysis, planning & organising data and editing

Research Question

Dignified Living: How can Participatory Design transform the experience of Residential Slum Living in India?

The essay explored tools of participatory design to establish its importance in designing social and low-cost residential homes.

Image by Kristian Bertel

The essay studied the work of two architects in India, Laurie Baker and Balakrishnan Doshi, that dedicated their practice to social housing. The analysis was done using participatory design tools to establish its importance in designing residential homes. Surveying, prototyping, and observing lifestyle patterns revealed that high-rise buildings do not work in such establishments as people have always been accustomed to living in low-rise homes. They prefer spaces with ample ground space for their daily living and feeling a sense of community.

The dissertation emphasised the point through the Chengalchoola Housing Community case studies by Laurie Baker and Aranya Housing Community by B.V Doshi.

Collaboration between the residents of informal homes and urban planners has always been troublesome without giving any autonomy to the people for homes being built for them. This essay highlighted the importance of participatory design in breaking this divide.

Chengalchoola Housing Community, by Laurie Baker

Aranya Housing Community, by BV Doshi

Aranya Housing Community, by BV Doshi

Rat Trap Bond Joinery Method, by Laurie Baker

Chawals: Visual illustartion of the composition of informal communities in India

Visual illustartion of the composition of informal communities in India

The images below show a orthogonal diagrammatic survey of the spaces within the slum communities to gain an understanding of spatial usuage and engagement.

Dissertation

03. Pews & Perches

Year: April 2022

Location: London, UK

Type: Product Design

Role: Design Conceptualisation and proposal

Pews and Perches is an annual design competition organised by the London Festival of Architecture. It invites architecture and design students, recent graduates and emerging practitioners to share their unique perspectives on sustainability within the Docks by designing a bench that actively engages its users and visitors to the Docks. The theme this year was ACT.

Design Context

80% of Marine Pollution comes from land-based activities

17+ Million Metric Tons of plastic entered the ocean in 2021

The design of the bench was based on the concept of balance. Through the design, we chose to represent both the balance and imbalance of the earth. We showed this by adding the seesaw mechanism. The movement of the bench works as evidence to its user that we need to come together as a society to have a balance on our planet.

Design Iterations and Explorations

Sketching experimentations

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Sketch Models using wire and balsa wood

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Technical Drawings

1600mm

Bench in use

Bench Plan

100mm metal sheet that holds the central structure together

Adjacent legs of the bench are welded together

Bench Front Elevation

Central metal rod takes on the role of the lever and allows for slight movement of the bench

Bench Side Elevation

Timber Slab

Iron Rods. 385mm in length

Handles for support 300mm above ground so the bench can move. Replicated the see-saw mechanism

Side legs act as stopper to limit large movemements

04. The House of Four Seaons

Year: July 2020

Location: London, UK

Type: Interior Design Competition

Role: Visulisations and Technical Drawings

This project was done in collaboration with two architecture students Kritika Lilani and Diego Morataya with the aim of creating a home that allows you to experience all four seasons of the year by focusing on the interaction between the ground and the water of the lake. The project design had been completed earlier by my two colleagues and was re-illustrated for the competition by me. The competition was organised by Archdais in 2020.

Design Context

Seasons are a beautiful natural phenomenon that occur around us on a yearly basis. The combination of seasons and architecture is so natural, that it creates something simple, yet so extraordinary. Nature has so many elements to represent its seasons, which tell a different story at different times of the day, month and year. The house is located on an island in Eller Forst, Dusseldorf, at the shore. It is meant to bring to life the transition between the ground and water of the lake.

The position of the house is intended to have three hundred and sixty degrees views of the site in order to feel at one with surroundings. This also creates various points of observation throughout the house due to the play of light and shadows. There is a sense of flow and continuity created throughout the house due to the bridges that connect the exterior of one building to the other. This allows the viewer to experience new layers of the site and buildings.

Technical Drawings

05. Personal Branding

Year: August 2022

Location: London, UK

Type: Graphic Design/Logo Design

Role: Designing Brand Identity and conceptualisation

Ananya Agarwalla is a personal branding project where she tries to establish her foundation as an interior designer and creative. The project aimed to build a brand identity representing her as a designer and creative thinker, with the colours reflecting her bold yet subtle design philosophy. The seamless harmony shown in the gradient highlights her dynamic nature, and the combination of serif and sans serif font also works around the ideas of boldness and subtly.

ana nya AGARWALLA

Namaste!

My name is Ananya Agarwalla, and I am creative by profession with a degree in Interior and Spatial Design. The idea behind this project was to represent who I am as a person and a designer.

Design Anatomy

I often have to correct people while pronouncing my name, so why not use my logo to break it down? Colours have been a big part of me since my childhood, and I enjoyed playing with them to incorporate them into my brand identity and reflect my personality.

Primary Logo Primary Logo Variation

ana nya

AGARWALLA

ana nya

AGARWALLA

Alternative Logo

Submarks

Fonts

Aa. Aa.

Colour Palatte

abcdefghijklmopqrstuvwxyz

ABCDEFGHIJKLMOPQRSTUVWXYZ 0123456789

Primary Typography Caslon Graphique

abcdefghijklmopqrstuvwxyz

ABCDEFGHIJKLMOPQRSTUVWXYZ 0123456789

Secondary Typography Futura Book PT

#41378B #8C599F #AFA9D9

#F4EEE1 #F2B56B

Thank

Meenakshi Temple Chennai, India