The hand-illustrated walls of a Delhi diner tell many stories. Try it at home.
Interior design is all about making the most of space, and making it look different. Mumbai-based designer Ayaz Basrai’s handiwork (literally) at Delhi’s recently-opened restaurant Smokehouse Deli, shows how walls can change the look of a space.
The drawings at this Deli, done in black ink on white walls, “personifies the Deli to look like the house of a person who has a story to tell.” Basrai and Riyaaz Amlani (co-owner, Smokehouse Deli) fleshed out this personality into someone who has travelled all over the world, picking up mementos along the way, and likes to live old-world style, with an oversized, outdated television set and radio, stacks of books, and a bunch of collectible audio CDs.
Sounds complicated to sketch on a wall? It isn’t. “This is a low cost option to decorate walls that you could even try in your home. It barely cost Rs 250 for material. The wall, infact, is the easiest space that you can experiment with, and you can make wall surfaces out of just about anything,” suggests Basrai. He is referring to the wall at Smokehouse Grill, Amlani’s other restaurant in Delhi, where Basrai has created a false wall out of handmade paper and fabric, and lit it up from the back to make the wall glow, giving the resto-bar a warm, intimate feel.
At the Deli, however, Basrai has created an informal space, and the simple black-and-white illustrations make it feel light and airy. The detailing is pleasing to the eye; an old-style telephone lies in a corner, a grandfather’s clock ticks on the side, illustrations of liquor bottles line the panel above the bar. “We conceived of an entirely hand-illustrated space with an eccentric interaction between 2D and 3D elements, and each time you return, you see something new. We took an irreverent, fun look at restaurant design, where objects exist as a parody of themselves. The outdoor signage, doors, wallpapers, windows and cabinets, were all hand illustrated by me over 25 days,” says Basrai, who works out of his small studio, The Busride, in Mumbai .
The Deli has been a challenging space in terms of execution -— “ I couldn’t afford to get a single stroke wrong while drawing, because then the entire wall would have to be repainted. I drew with a black Reynolds marker on walls painted with oil-based ivory lustre paint. Since I used an alcohol-based marker, I had to ensure a protective coating made of organic lacquer and two coats of water based melamine,” says Basrai. Technically, this an easy treatment, with a shelf life of four-five years. It’s cheap too, starting at Rs 5 per sq foot. A space like the Smokehouse Grill, meanwhile, can cost Rs 800-1000 per sq foot.
Basrai is now working on similar interiors for a Smokehouse Deli chain, and a line of merchandise including wall clocks and radio sets that feature in the wall illustrations.
| GIVE YOURSELF A FUNKY WALL |
