Saket Communications office by Ar.Rakesh Patel

Gone are the days when offices used to be just places for working and accommodating people. Working spaces with cubicles, white walls and fluorescent lights are so out of fashion. Today’s offices are created to work towards an assortment of different goals. Owners are now are now joining hands with the interior decorators who can build a space for the company’s employees to thrive. When it comes to designing office for a creative agency, typical designs and colour combinations are a big no-no. 

When Architect Rakesh Patel got the job of decoration the office of Saket Communications which is one of the best creative agencies in Pune, he decided to quirk up things a bit. “One fine day I got a call from the Soumendu Kuber, who is the creative director of the agency, that he wanted me to design an office space for him. All he said was that I don’t want anything usual, do something out of the box for me... that’s it that’s all the brief I got from him” quotes Rakesh the chief Interior decorator. The office space has truly come out to be out of the box with unusual colour combinations, hidden spaces for storage which perfectly blend with the background and yes a hidden cabin for the boss. 

“I wanted to try something which I never had done. I wanted to go beyond the creative limits of interior decoration and really do something unusual. For that first I had to think out of the box. I did all the possible methods to broaden my mind... I did meditation, searched for references, secluded myself from the usual, but in vain, the inspiration for my work seems to have been lost somewhere in the depths of creative pit. Bin in my office was almost over filled with crumpled and discarded sheets of paper. Then one day, it came to me like a lightning and I knew just what to do” says Rakesh about his revelation moment.  From there started his journey to design the quirkiest office he has designed till now. 

Every room of the office has a unique design and yet the rooms merge into one another to create a flow of the elements.  Unlike the grey office spaces, this office has a rich combination of vibrant and unusual colour combinations like green, black, yellow blue and so on. “Deciding upon the colour scheme of the office was a huge task, as people who would be utilising this space are all creative minds. Thus to match their calibre and creativity, every room was given different colour schemes according to the departments. In many places we decided to remove the wall to give people to walk around freely.” 

Marketing department is like a powerhouse of any advertising company. It is the link between clients and the creative people. It was therefore crucial to give them a space to move around and take client calls’ quotes Rakesh. To give them the perfect ambience to work, Rakesh and his team decided to give the room a grey look and balance it off with a colourful wall. The room has decorative cabinets with enough space for storage. Another unique feature of this room is that the cabinets built here do not have handles to add up to the aesthetic sense of the design. In this same room  also has a celebrity wall and a celebrity chair. “Lot of celebrities regularly visit Saket, till now eminent personalities like Shankar Mahadevan, Sonam Kapoor, media baron Subhash Chandra have been to Saket. It was therefore extremely necessary to make these celebrities feel special, thus I decided to design a throne fit for every eminent personality which visits Saket to sit onto” quotes Rakesh. 

Cabin of the Managing Director “This cabin is like the surprise element of the office. The door is perfectly blended with the celebrity wall, and that’s what the beauty of this room is all about. For a man who loves to do something different and thinks out of the box I thought doing an unusual entrance to his cabin would be apt. When I told Soumendu about this idea he absolutely loved it” says amused Rakesh while talking on the quirky hidden door of the Managing Director’s cabin. The simple interior perfectly balances the eccentric exterior of this cabin, with a colourful door which greets anyone entering this door has rich shades of black and greys to give a perfect room for discussion. The cabin is decorated with a retro lights which compliments and add up to the overall look of the room. “The main USP as they call it here in advertising world is the design of the balcony. The entire flooring of the balcony is done from the remaining materials to avoid the wastage. Before designing the office we all had decided to reuse all the materials to reduce on the amount of waste created and to use each and every material to its full use” proudly quotes Rakesh on achieving his aim of creating minimum amount of wastage. 

“Saket Communications Pvt. Ltd is a brainchild of Mr. Vineet Kuber, under whose able vision this company started and grew. A wise soul and a traditional man in his approach, I wanted to design a cabin which compliments his personality, therefore the interiors of this room are quite traditional” says Rakesh. With a room to showcase Saket’s achievements this room has a well designed floating desk which is the star of this room. This room compared to the other office has a simplistic and a corporate look.  (Would require few more inputs if any)

The art department - “Art department is the place where all the creative churning happens. It is like the nucleus of the organisation where all the creative souls sit and work. To give these creatively brazen humans a space of their own to move around and think was our biggest challenge. To match their calibre we decided to do an unusual and bold colour combination with bold design on ceiling” quotes Rakesh while talking on the interiors of the art department. The art department is strategically located in the central area of the office with a great amount of the space for the people to move around. The walls of this room are adorned in black colour to reduce reflection for the computers. The furniture here is done is in green and white colour to perfectly balance the black colour. The carpet used here too adds up to the beauty of the room and is in the sync with the entire angular design of the room. The hexagonal lights fitted in the hexagonal border ensure the flow of elements from the bottom towards the top.

Accounts departments - The room which takes care of all the gives and the takes of the company has been given a vibrant ambience. The room where the numbers rule need the maximum space to store the files and other important data required by the company, therefore there are numerous built-in cupboards for storage spaces all of them have been designed to get well blended with the background. This room is designed with all the bright shades of yellows and whites and for better cross ventilation a huge window has been installed.

The media cabin - The media cabin on Saket has been designed in the modest colours of brown and white. The star of this room is the elegant and well designed storage space. As the media department needs to keep a track of the agency’s published articles and ads one needs lot of storage space, hence Rakesh Pate and his team decided to transform a wall into a huge cupboard which stores all the necessary files and data of the company.

Digital room “This is a place where all the online magic happens, given to the age of digitalisation the digital room is the place where the people work to virtually promote the company as well as its clients. The beauty of the interior lies in the fact that the entire desks built here are collapsible to make more space during the time of conferences. A built-in book shelf has been designed in the form of a cityscape to add up to the aesthetic sense of the room. Vibrant colour combination of blue and yellow has been used to give that room a vibrant look” says Rakesh.

Every room of this office has been carefully designed to suite to the needs of the different departments, it is like a mystery which unfolds as you further explore this office space. This unique and quirky interiors were even lauded by none other than Shankar Mahadevan who had come to inaugurate this office.