One of the patrons of architecture in this time happen to be businessmen who aim to diversify their dealings by getting into other businesses that require least amount of input and the fastest commercial reaction. Most of the urban fabric of our country happens to be a subject to these capitalists’ aesthetic fancy, who happen to be frequent travelers.

Their idea of aesthetic ascendancy is inspired by the most eye catching examples from their intensive globe trotting experiences. Global half-baked experiences award them an enormous complex of being artistically superhuman which in turn gives them a self-presumed edge over all the architects they don’t even hire with their own money, thanks to bank financing schemes and shrewd business tactics involved in the construction of commercial projects. These patrons make all the arrangements to see their far fetched wishes fulfilled, with the help of a money wand and the dictating global copy-paste design philosophy.

Another obsession of this business class happens to be area calculation. Their idea of successful architecture is one which grosses optimal value “per sft”. However bizarre their ideas appear at the start of a project, their love for more revenue shrinks the influence of global trotting to a 2-dimensional rendition of the ‘elevation’ alone. Artistic freedom for the architect working for them reduces to the expertise of a graphic designer. Beside the poetics, pragmatics of these spaces is also stipulated to be open and flexible for the sake of the authoritative commercial interest.

The sole ambition of such imperious clients is to take pseudo-revolutionary measures for their projects. These projects have to be the most outlandish, the most appealing, the most different, the first yet not the last. Once built, you see replicas of them around not only the city but the entire country, until they go on a yet another global tour.

For architects it is often hard to get into the minds of such commercially motivated clients but ones who do, really know how to decipher and blindly surrender to the meaning of commerce, industry and self-flattering wellbeing.

Mr. Osama happens to be a Deconstructivist standing on the verge of mastering kitsch, with the way he attempts to accentuate his building forms as irrational, specious, dismantled, fragmented and a bit too distorted elements. Deconstructivist buildings like the architect’s own house have no visual logic; from the moment you enter the architect’s own house a plethora of materials, textures, colors, and unrelated, disharmonious and abstract forms, planes, geometry and unusual penetrations greet you into an unexpected oblivion. At the very instant of arrival, the architect’s house makes an announcement of painstaking determination with which all geometrical shapes have been accommodated in the openings of the elevation. The freedom of design that only an architect can allow himself at the risk of other people’s opinions is very visible in the sharp edges and a never ending pastiche of surface treatment, materials, geometry and color.

One of the many wonders of the house are the openings that can actually be seen as just a change of material, from concrete to glass. Most of the windows on the main elevation surprisingly happen to be fixed. Once you walk in to the house, the quality of air inside attests the fact that most of the windows are plain light-carriers. Every detail inside the house is carried from the exterior, but nothing registers much more than the interior ornamentation that appears to have been done with an un-winking eye.

The architect, reflecting upon his own understanding of interior architecture declared, “Interior architecture is not merely stylized decoration but a serious discipline to improve man’s living and working environment. Our lives are greatly influenced by the interior environment; we inhabit our home, offices and places at leisure. An architect has a vital role in society for he creates these environments. My concern for the quality of indoor environment has resulted in designs with good space planning, flexibility efficient lighting and energy systems, besides the use of art with an aesthetically pleasing space. Along with this, an aesthetic style, through an exploration of new ideas, achieves synthesis with established design principles avoiding the excessive use of decorative motives.” 

The most predominant aspect of the house’s interior is the use of materials that is done with an improbable level of versatility, the design of each and every architectural element in the house has been explored to the fullest. Take for example the staircase, it is an arch-form in plan and is made up of steel structure resting on a powder coated steel beam, until you see the next flight supported by a space frame, and both disappear in the flight after. Likewise, successive flights of treads are either made of wood, or a combination of glass and granite. 

In the pastiche of geometry and its distortion, imported and local materials, western and traditional influences, arch plan of the staircase is not the only contextual influence placed amidst oval, round, triangular and abstract elements. The landing of one of the flights is done in parquet depicting Islamic motifs. Arch plan continues in the formation of a gravel-laden pond beside which is the wazoo area with a tiled stool and a water tap in it.

Even at a first glance into the house the use of MDF is abundant and flares up the design activity inside the house. You see flashiest of all spotlighting false-ceilings; internal trellises of MDF and plywood; the multi-colored and amorphous yet triangular partition walls and the geometrical confusion of back-lit wall units done in the most decorative way possible. Use of mild steel is also profuse in the erratic design of the staircase with many kinds of treads and as many styles of supports and railings. Railing in itself has compound designs, floral in some parts, geometric in others and composite in some more. Countless layers of the house openly expose the level of interest the architect has taken into detailing his house’s internal elevations, multiple heights, and the ceilings. Drapes and upholstery of the rooms are also dramatic and suiting a frivolous life style.

As the architect puts it himself, “my aim is to create innovative interiors by keeping away from trends and themes, while doing justice to the space and requirements. Every project is handed on its own merits to create a positive spiritual environment having its own soul and always a unique design experience for me. Architectural detailing is effectively used to enhance the quality of design and appropriate use of material, textures, colors, and lighting creates a feeling of belongingness and warmth.”

After watching the visual acrobatics of inside the house we made our way to the basement.  Just like the entire experience, even this was as crammed with uniqueness and meticulous detailing. The uniformity of kitschy interests continues in the clammy basement also. It used to house the office of the architect earlier, thus has many brochures of his commercial high-rise projects. Going through the catalogues of various project elevations, similar taste (as of his own house) clearly manifests how Mr. Osama compulsively metamorphoses all of his aesthetic experiences into an unexplainable kitsch.