The WINNER Contemporary Majlis design competition (Index Interior Design Show, Dubai)

Our Contemporary Majlis Design competition for INDEX 2009, in Dubai, is a response to a regional need for a design-identity revival, a renaissance of sorts, for the art of dialogue, conversation, communication and the sharing of ideas. Using the language of interior design we have created a synergetic, holistic design experience. The attempt is to layer the various elements and scales of design in a single space
demonstrating the need and vibrant result of simultaneous design practices operating towards one end.

The majlis has been inspired from a bisymmetrical Islamic motif iconically used in mashrabiya patterns over centuries and across the Muslim world. The seating has been extruded to float off the floor to regular chair height. The patterns with which it folds around the space is a liquid, organic yet geometric distortion of the motif below. It retains the spirit without becoming a mere decorative surface. It talks to the world of deconstruction whilst retaining its inherent structure within, in an invisible casing.

Inspired by the traditional, nomadic, Bedouin floor seating styles, the core of the design is the comfortable,

flexible, mis-matched fabrics, shapes and sizes of cushions that grow from back rests into day beds, almost comforter-like in certain sections allowing time to be as elastic as the user pleases it to be while inhabiting the space. Tables exude light, light is sandwiched between the couch and the floor, the wall fades from stark to a dreamy charcoal blur at eye level.

The tiniest of detail is expressed, be it in the chic, seamless architecture of the villa it would belong to or the architectural towers of sound or the delicately balanced date flavours wrapped in a modern cake format. All the senses are tickled, at the same time.

We believe that in the present climate of global recession, found objects can be recycled into a new era of luxury