Design Matters: Designs That Tell Stories
Ms. Reshma Karmarkar, CEO & Chief Architect, Design Matters
From ancient Egyptians to modern-day trends, interior design has come a long way. The interior design industry is evolving at a fast pace, and matching its steps with the growth is Design Matters, an innovative architecture & interior design firm.
Founded by Reshma Karmarkar in 2013 and headquartered in Mumbai, Design Matters is a full-service, integrated architecture, interior design, and thematic design solutions practice and turn-key construction firm.
Reshma Karmarkar, the CEO and Chief Architect at Design Matters is one of India's leading and award-winning thematic concept architects. Along with her, the highly creative 15-member team of super-talented architects and interior designers at Design Matters strongly believes in creating CUSTOMER DELIGHT with DESIGN EXCELLENCE.
From developing innovative concepts and designs across a broad spectrum of thematic, contemporary, neo-classical, and futuristic styles to managing construction administration and turn-key fit-outs for large commercial spaces and high-end luxury residential projects, the team at Design Matters excels in every field.
One of India's leading thematic design expert and award-winning architect, Reshma Karmarkar, and her business associates incorporated their years of expertise and steadfast belief in "Design Truly Matters" to create Design Matters in 2013.
With a mission to create Customer Delight with Design Excellence powered by innovation, efficiency, creativity, and emotions, Design Matters has grown tremendously to become a full-service architecture, interior design, thematic design solutions, and execution firm since its inception.
Their vision is to be the country’s leading thematic design and architectural firm that works with the best talent and partners. From having a humble beginning in the fall of 2013 to executing scores of interesting projects, Design Matters, a bootstrapped firm, turned out to be a profitable venture.
According to Ms. Reshma, although numbers are important, the success of Design Matters relies heavily on the variety and scale of design operations it has been undertaking over the years. For her, the firm's success is executing challenging projects, pushing their limits, and being known for their exemplary quality of work each passing year.
Some of their famous works include the Yoskies, a thematic office in Pune, a Creative factory space in Dubai, and Mrinaltai Gore Dalan in Goregaon, inaugurated by the honourable Shri Sharad Pawar, to name a few.
Design Matters has many accolades to its name, including the recent recognition as the Most Innovative Architecture & Design Firm of 2021 (Maharashtra & Gujarat) in the Public Spaces and Theme Parks category and being featured in the digital version of VOGUE INDIA for one of the uber-luxury residential projects in Kandla, Gujarat, India.
Under the aegis of Reshma and her team of experienced senior associates, the super-talented architects at Design matters get a highly creative and conducive environment.
Although headquartered in Mumbai, Design Matters offers its services to clients across the geographical spread of the country. They cater to diverse clients from premium commercial/office real estate, luxury residential spaces, high-end restaurants & hospitality, and thematic entertainment park verticals.
As a young growing firm, Design Matters believes in offering specific services that set them apart. The innovative designs and attention to detail have rapidly scaled Design Matters to become a full-service architecture, interior design, thematic design solutions, and execution firm.
The creative minds at Design Matters working in harmony have resulted in a diverse clientele and made it what it is today.
The three essential services of Design Matters focus on residential, commercial, hospitality & entertainment, and healthcare verticals.
Architecture: The team at Design Matters offer thoughtfully created concepts and designs that are functional, practical, and aesthetic.
Interiors: Elevating clients’ living and working spaces, including HNIs, to corporates with stylish and innovative designs.
Thematic Design: Design Matters with their design brings themes to life with visual storytelling for clients across residential, commercial, hospitality, and entertainment verticals.
Design matters mantra to drive customer delight sets them apart from their competitors. Their differentiating factors lie in two value systems deeply ingrained in their firm’s ethos:
Understanding The Customer- Instead of focusing on just the client's wants, the team at Design Matters focuses on their needs by paying attention to what is not being said.
Co-Existing Functional Practicality And Aesthetics- The Design Matters team never compromises the functional practicality of space for aesthetics and vice versa.
Another thing that sets them apart is their consultative approach-meets-personalization style of work. The team of Design matters spends considerable time with their customers to decipher their needs.
The amalgamation of their design expertise, logic, and common sense helps them design the best space usage.
Instead of working on the cookie-cutter model and using templatized design, Design Matters offers a customized design that blends art with science and personally resonates with the client.
Their objective is to leverage new developments and styles to add functionality to a space rather than force-fitting design for the sake of it.
“Designs are boring if they aren’t telling a story”
-Reshma Karmarkar - The Mind Behind Design Matters
Reshma Karmarkar, an award-winning thematic architect, India's leading concept expert, highly sought-after design entrepreneur, and ardent believer of visual storytelling in her designs founded Design Matters with two core tenets: Trust and Tenacity. According to her, their collective ability and tenacity to persevere help them face any challenges in their journey.
In her earlier thematic architectural firm, she was the lead designer in developing India's first live entertainment, theatre, and leisure destination, ‘Kingdom of Dreams’ at Gurugram. The project went on to win the coveted VM-RD Retail Design Award in 2011.
From a professional to an entrepreneur, Reshma, with her sole purpose of creating designs that evoke emotions, has been at the forefront of blending designs with stories and amalgamating architecture with conceptual themes.
Reshma, with her 25 years of career, with a specialized focus on Thematic Designs for over a decade and a half, had hands-on experience designing hundreds of high-profile projects in India and abroad, including Glocal Junction and The Jade Garden at Mumbai, renovating Gopi Talav at Surat, the IIFA Lounge & Bar at Mumbai International Airport, the Curse of Salimgarh Dark Ride at Adlabs Imagica, Tasse De The at Mumbai, and Alto Bar & Lounge at London.
She was recently recognized as one of the 50 Under 50 Best Architects in India 2021 by Architecture & Interior Design Excellence Awards & Conference 2021.
A double graduate in Architecture and Interior Design from Mumbai’s premier educational institute, Reshma’s unwavering passion for design coupled with superlative strategic and tactical skills in project planning and execution leadership have made a definite mark in a gender-lopsided design development & construction field.
With her keen eye for detail, design innovations, and uncanny ability to decipher clients’ needs, she aims to strike a fine balance between logic and emotion to conceptualize and develop surreal designs that tell compelling stories to be remembered.
Reshma Karmarkar's advice to young entrepreneurs is,
"Never be afraid to ask questions. We stop learning when we stop asking questions. An entrepreneurial journey is riddled with ups and downs, seeking patience, perseverance, and inquisitiveness to ride the wave. Enjoy it. Every experience teaches us something valuable. Cherish it."
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