Page 40 - Masala E-magazine Vol 9 Issue 3 December 2017-January 2018

I wanted to do something

for myself and have fun. You
never know where it takes you,

and here I am, 15 years later.

How does the interior design process work?
We create a concept study rst. We think about how it will look. We
think of the location, the story and the background of the place.
We don’t just study the site; we come up with a story for it and
consider colours and themes.

The creative minds behind ASC Interior Next, we speak to the owners to understand their requirements.
They want their brand identity to be represented through our
said why not. So I opened the rm, and started handling a few work, so we have to translate their requirements into the space.
properties for my husband who was working in real estate. Back After all, we complete the nal touches after the engineers and
then, I wanted to do something for myself and have fun. You never architects are done with their work. Once, we had a client who built
know where it takes you, and here I am, 15 years later. a hotel in remembrance of her late son. Every corner re ected
this sentiment and we furnished the place with personal pictures
What makes ASC Interior stand out from competitors? taken by her husband.
We have a very strong and detail-oriented group with team leaders
who are very experienced with hospitality projects. We also have After this, we get the clients and operators to approve, and then
great clients who continually recommend new projects to us. the architect will begin work on it. It is quite a lengthy process. For
For the past 10 years, we have taken jobs all over Asia, including example, Hyatt Place in Bangkok was in development for ve years.
Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh and India. 80 percent of our
clients are hotels, and we do get residential and commercial What is the best part of being an interior designer?
projects as well. Understanding the client’s needs and requests, and nding the
perfect solution for them. It is a challenge and sometimes as a
What is one of the most exciting projects you worked on? designer you have to realise that in order to achieve the design you
De nitely the Dream Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 15! That project was want, you have to let go of certain things to achieve better results
bought by a friend of my father-in-law. At the time, there were overall. But yes, the best part of my job is learning how to turn the
no other boutique hotels in Bangkok. It was fun because it was client’s dream into reality.
a brand from New York and the concept was East meets West.
The owner came for the rst presentation and told us we could
do whatever we wanted. We had a full budget as well. It was a
designer’s dream come true. We got to play with every kind of
material and it went beyond our expectations. Later in 2010, we
won a property award for Best Hotel Interior Design in Thailand and
the Asia Paci c. We were competing with Hilton Pattaya which had
just opened for three months. All of us put our soul and heart into
it, and it paid o .

Do you prefer hospitality or residential projects?
For me, I like everything. As a passionate interior designer,
you have to love all of it. You can’t pick the client or the project.
But I have been fortunate enough to be given certain creative
developments like the Dream Hotel.

Where do you source most of your furniture?
Locally! We make-to-order a lot of our furniture because some
are not easy to source. We also specially make pieces when the
brand’s original selection, including the fabric, sizing and colour, is
not matching with our designs.

Anita poses in the lobby of her company’s latest
project, Hyatt Place Bangkok Sukhumvit

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