
Client: Private client
Architect: APA Studio
Role: Interior architecture, styling and art direction
Year Completed: 2024
Photography: Brotherton Lock
Architect: APA Studio
Role: Interior architecture, styling and art direction
Year Completed: 2024
Photography: Brotherton Lock
Esmond Road house is a three storey, semi-detached townhouse built in the late Victorian, Queen Anne revival style. The approach was sensitively to adapt the 19th century house to make it suitable for 21st century family living. Using natural materials including stone, timber and metals and a contemporary palette of fabrics, colours, textures and layers, the home complements the owners’ personal taste, bringing style, character, and comfort to every space.
The interior strategy was to zone the home into two distinct, yet complimentary styles: late Victorian and modern-transitional. The late Victorian style informed the design for the existing parts of the house, including the sitting room, hallways, powder room and staircase. Elsewhere, the modern-transitional style addresses the new back extension, including the kitchen and dining spaces. The bedrooms and private studies of the home were designed as havens for their inhabitants, bringing their personalities to the fore.
“The scrutiny we had to place on every decision made the process really interesting – the owners were always insistent that the house felt homely and welcoming; somewhere you could raise a family.”


The client was deeply passionate about reducing the house’s impact on the planet and designing it to improve their wellbeing. This resulted in the rigorous application of Passivhaus principles and strictly using natural materials in the interior schemes. This resulted in a unique approach to designing the spaces including the use of clay plaster, old techniques of horsehair upholstery and deploying only natural fabrics throughout, to highlight a few.
“Everything has a lovely textural quality, and nothing strays too much into current trends territory. The house has a sense of timelessness that doesn’t feel manufactured.”


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Client: Private client
Role: Interior architecture, styling and art direction
Year Completed: 2024
Photography: Sim Canetty-Clarke
Role: Interior architecture, styling and art direction
Year Completed: 2024
Photography: Sim Canetty-Clarke
Sitting within the West Square conservation area, this Kennington apartment spans the top floor of two Victorian houses. This arrangement provides lateral space more usually seen in a mansion flat. The owners wanted to retain the character of the space but bring a more modern approach to the interior, which houses their idiosyncratic collection of furniture, antiques and objects. As entertaining is of primary importance to the owners, one of the two principal rooms became a dedicated dining room, an unusual luxury in a London flat. This room was lined with a chinoiserie inspired wallcovering, creating a warm environment for evening use and brightening the space during the day. The living room has a more Italian flavour, using earthy Tuscan tones to frame the owners’ possessions, which include an a eighteenth century Italian niche and mid-century travertine coffee table.


While the entertaining spaces are quite layered, a more contemporary and fresh approach was applied to the kitchen, bedroom and bathroom, to give a quieter effect. Walls were kept white and colour is supplied in by textiles or ceramics.


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Designed while working at Michaelis Boyd
Client: Doyle CollectionRole: Interior architecture, styling and art direction
Year Completed: 2018
Photography: Sim Cannetty-Clarke and Gavriil Papadiotis
The luxury suites at the Bloomsbury Hotel are situated within a Grade II listed building designed by Edward Lutyens. The brief was to reimagine the suites for the 21st century traveller whilst reflecting the rich history of the building and its diverse neighbourhood.
The result was a vibrant scheme which brings together a palette of luxurious materials including the solid timber herringbone floors, limed oak fitted joinery and an eye-catching headboard in scarlet leather framed by a beautiful tapestry-style jacquard. Elsewhere, contemporary armchairs and accent tables add some modernity, balancing the neo-Georgian architectural details.



Finished with an ethnic rug and botanical wallcovering the suites are a calm, yet dramatic retreat for the guest, reminding them of where they are: the literary and theatrical centre of London.


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In collaboration with Mangesh Lungaria
Client: Chester’s India
Role: Interior architecture, styling and art direction
Year Completed: 2023
Credits: Chester’s India
Photography: Mangesh Lungaria and Ananth Ramaswamy
Client: Chester’s India
Role: Interior architecture, styling and art direction
Year Completed: 2023
Credits: Chester’s India
Photography: Mangesh Lungaria and Ananth Ramaswamy
Located in the heart of Bangalore’s Cantonment district, the design of this fine furniture boutique was about finding a space to contextualise the many European and Indian influences embodied in the client’s beautifully made pieces.
Working in collaboration with Mangesh Lungaria we wanted the interiors to feel distinctly Bangalorean with references to both the 1970’s modernist styles and the colonial influences of the late 19th century. Reflecting the construction of the pieces, the details and materials used combine the local with the international.
The site was an un-inspiring ground floor space in a commercial unit. We started by converting the car park into a lush, contemporary garden which makes for a calm and relaxing entry into the interior. Inside, we stripped the building to its concrete shell and opened several windows and filled them with a glass brick to create a much greater sense of space and obscure some of the views, which were not particularly attractive. Bespoke plasterwork and fired clay tiles, otherwise used on the inside of kilns, were used on the floor to bring character and texture to the space.
A carefully chosen selection of objects, antiques and rugs were layered in to bring a further context and sense of character to the client’s collection. The space gives customers a sense their home whilst also seeing the furniture through our client’s vision.


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Designed while working at Michaelis Boyd
Client: Doyle Collection
Role: Interior architecture
Year Completed: 2018
Photography: Sim Canetty-Clarke and Gavriil Papadiotis
Client: Doyle Collection
Role: Interior architecture
Year Completed: 2018
Photography: Sim Canetty-Clarke and Gavriil Papadiotis
The brief was to transform a set of dated business meeting rooms into an array of interesting spaces for any type of celebration, meeting or gathering.
With such an open brief, the starting point was the building’s history. Built as a post-war infill block, the spaces echoed memories of the swinging 60’s and the design embraced this to deliver a set of stylish rooms that reflected the materials and mood of this period.
Rose tinted mirror, fluted oak panelling, sumptuous red velvet and mid-century furniture and lighting are paired to form a theatrical yet subtly luxurious set of rooms.







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Telephone
+44 (0) 7506707596
Email
Ananth@arallstudio.com
+44 (0) 7506707596
Ananth@arallstudio.com
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