Architects in Goa remodel tips for home with small spaces

Looking to construct your dream home? We at Eadus, are an architecture firm comprising of a talented team that is based in Goa that will guide you with designs, expertise and solutions from small re-modelling to complete turnkey projects. We took on a project with tight space and applied basic design principles, simple psychology and basic experiments to address common space problems seen in most Goan apartments. With the use of fundamental design rules we look to make the room feel better. Being an architecture firm from Goa our team is well versed with the challenges seen in the local environment, are aware of the preferences in styling and conceptualization and in a urban space are conscious on how best spaces can be utilized.

Making a spaces that expresses you is the starting point of our project design. We keep in mind the fundamental rules of design while planning spaces. Elements such as light and the impact it is on the layout to the use of pattern and texture. Personalities have a vital role to play in decorating a space, for it to call it your own it needs to maintain the right balance and harmony. Last but not the least it is the finishing touches that careful thought needs to be put into.

There is plenty of flexibility available in theory while designing and decorating a space which is quite subjective, however plenty of it based on intuition and experience. At a macro level design rules are based more on evaluating and judging whether one theory can make a room look better.

Beginning with space, the ultimate luxury, we first study the various columns, beams, floors, walls and ceilings. As you climb the property ladder, the use of space get even more challenging and dynamic, for eg, from one bedroom to two, one kitchen to more, the quest for more space brings on more challenges towards comfort and luxury. In the urban areas of Goa space is definitely a luxury especially towards the coast belts of Miramar, Dona Paula, Calangute, Baga etc, all very popular areas in the real estate market. Most apartments in general are at an average of 140 m2, with the living room being 15 X13 feett. With limited amount of space, major building work that involves wall moving has very limited scope and therefore making do with what is available is the primary option for most homeowners. Our approach is making use of design rules to make your space look bigger. Being an architecture firm  we feature in the list of among the best architects in Goa, popular due to our perspective of making optimized use of space for our clientele.

On an existing space de-cluttering is the firm rule of design, without furniture there are no objects dividing up the space, thus the concept of less can appear to be more surely applies here. Although the principle of having very little space in the room, using pastel colours would make it to appear bigger works, in real life many would say that it is just not practical, as being minimalistic would be in many ways un-livible. With the right aesthetics and a few practical tricks of the trade, a simple space can be reconverted in a comfortable living space. Balance of design created with light and glass is one instance of how even a small space can bring out highlights of a room. Provisioning a second window in a living-room wall will bring in more light and increase the sense of space. The Japanese made use of a design principle that got really popular called ‘borrowing landscape’, that applied ‘taking the outside of open spaces and moving it inside’. Placing an eye catching object opposite the window we built; (on the outside that is), will draw your eye out and extend the view. In this case we placed in the garden a small tree in the centre of the window we put it. This design principle is a small trick that is used widely to made a room appear to be wider, however you must also factor in two of the most fundamental principles of design as well that is perception and proportion which practically implies how we see the space and how much of the space we utilise.

The ancient Greeks cleverly utilised these design principles with the perfect architectural design tool, the perfect human body. Leornardo Da Vinci’s- Vitruvian Man was derived from a formula called the ‘Golden Ratio’ that sections up the human body in ideal proportions. It is a formula that can be implemented for architectural uses as well. In our case if you do not scale right, the room will appear to look cramped even if you have a large space to work with. This principle goes to show how a room can appear to be too large or too small. The perception of it being too small will give us the felling of the room closing-in and if it is too large, well it is said to make us feel venerable. A typical example would be in a restaurant, we would prefer our backs to the wall and prefer to look out a view on in the open, similarly in a larger room, you would tend to spend more time in the centre of the room. The common solution is to screen off sections of the room with larger spaces or we simply do not end up spending a lot of time there.

Perception is a very basic yet important architectural principle that if properly used can delude the brain to make a limited space look larger. Most homeowners will tell you that they would not like to entirely get rid of the furniture and electronics in the living-room space, therefore it is necessary to find a work around it. In our case, we had a room with textured ceilings that caught your attention every time and gave the appearance that the ceiling was much lower, we got rid of and painted it with a similar shade of pastel we used on the walls. The room also had a conflicting color scheme, which we was now in a shade of pastel blue.

Although in our case it was not possible to physically make a space larger, but with the use of the right color schemes and the right architectural choices, you can make even a small space like the one on this project feel larger. The room had carpeting as it’s flooring which we got rid off and replaced with wooden flooring. Although carpets work well in absorbing echo’s in a room or even absorb noise, they do the same job to light as well as they are made of multiple filaments that suck light in and absorb it. Remember, putting anything hard or relatively shiny on the floor such as laminate, timber, ceramic tiles, marble or other types of stone will bounce light and sound back. If you measure the lighting reading in a room, floors with carpet in comparison to hard flooring, you will notice the lighting reading to exceed over double in latter. Since the lighting in a room is maximised, it also maximises the feeling of space. Also in many spaces, you may notice diagonal flooring which is towards the direction of the light, this helps in increasing the feeling of a larger width and with vertical lines, you can accentuate the appearance of the length and breadth of the space.

Tricking the eye is very essential while planning the interiors of a small space. Vertical lines on the walls draw the eyes attention upwards increasing the feeling of height, on the other hand, horizontal lines in the form of picturals and blocks of color below the dado, give the appearance of lower height but increase the feeling of width. Another variation to this, is the use of a strong color on a single short wall  would make it come forward to greet the eye, it will also decrease the depth of the space but will give the appearance of a larger width of the room. If you choose the opposite, which is a loud color on the long walls preferably that are parallel to each other, you will get the effect of a long thin corridor. Another form of eye trickery is the use of dark color on the ceiling or the floor, will give the appearance of a much smaller space. You will notice here, it is all in the brain and how it perceives it.

Keeping this in mind, to get the most out of the space at hand is to fully understand how the space will be used. Majority of interior decorating is illusions, but if broken down, one half of it is the building work to create the space and the other part is creating the right illusions. In our case, we cleverly used mirrors in a few sections of room that were opposite the window. This gave help in repleflecting more light inside. We also got rid of a couple of large dark pictures in the room, that was leading the eye to it and focusing on it, we wanted to trick the eye to focus on other elements such as how how the ceiling is or where the corners of the wall are. Instantly the focus shifts and the eye and brain is now distracted on calculating other elements in the space.

Although optical illusions can fool our eyes and brains, our bodies are three dimensional. Keep in mind that when there is too much furniture in a small room, we are going to bump into it. Moving it away from the walls shows-up more floor space and stops you from looking at the corners and makes the room feel bigger.

We also used plenty of storage in our build, more of it wherever possible. Instead to a heavy sofa we went with flexible seating with built-in storage space. We added a picture frame in the centre of the wall that was hung low, to draw the eye to the middle of the room. We replaced the three seater sofa which was large for the space with a two seater. With use of color, pastels if you want the wider look, draw the eye out with windows, de-clutter, more light the bigger the feel, white surfaces to bounce light, but most essentially the use of design to delude the brain to make it appear bigger is most critical principle among the rules of space.