A certain type of interior seems, to the naked eye, to have never been completed. Pipes are exposed along the ceiling. Walls are either bare or unplastered brick. Elements like beams, columns, and structural elements, which would have been hidden and obscured by most design styles, are left bare and exposed. It is industrial interior design, and the first thing to understand is that there is nothing accidental about it.
One of the most controlled interiors to do well with is the industrial interiors, though this may not be seen as such at first sight. The rawness is not what occurs when choices are not taken. It is the consequence of extremely particular decisions that are maintained throughout all the surfaces of the room. Misjudging these yields two familiar failures – the space appears literally unfinished, and the other one appears to be attempting to appear unfinished – neither works. They are easily differentiated by just looking in.
This is the very essence of the industrial interior design, which is characterized by this quality – a deliberate rawness, and which is more difficult to create than it may seem.
What, in fact, are Industrial Design Prizes?
The majority of interior styles strive towards some form of aesthetic perfection. Through restraint, Japandi finds it. Through reduction, minimalism is found. Natural softness is the way biophilic design finds. Industrial design takes a whole new direction. The majority request refining materials to a perfect form. This requests them to demonstrate what they actually are, worn, and textured, and use-formed.
Unlike most interior styles, the industrial aesthetic considers evidence of use to retain, not to remedy. Scratched floors, visible grain, tonal change over a floor or a wall – these are not issues in an industrial environment. These are the qualities that are sought after. In this case, anything that looks too homogeneous, too clean, too new seems to be wrong.
And there is a line that counts. The imperfection has to feel intentional. A place in which the objects appear to be worn out due to the design is quite different compared to a place in which objects just appear to be forgotten. Industrial design works when that difference is evident – when the rawness is thought about, even when it is informal.
Visible grain and tonal depth on surfaces contribute to creating character. The interiors become resolved as opposed to unresolved, with edges that reflect light differently as compared to neighboring planes and transitions that are structural and not decorative. These are the facts that make an industrial aesthetic appear to be taken into consideration.
Where It Comes, And Why That Matters Here.
Industrial aesthetic – it did not start as a design movement. It began as a practical reaction to a particular occasion when post-industrial cities in Europe and North America (c.1970s onwards) were transforming spaces of large factory and warehouse buildings into spaces to live and work. The contents of those spaces – concrete floors, steel columns, reclaimed timber, brick walls – remained because it was costly to remove them and because, over time, people realised that there was something in them of value to retain.
These materials were the result of dry, cold climates and structures built to be used in factories. They were not intended to be used in daily life.
These same materials in India are seen to behave quite differently. Untreated timber and bare concrete pose real problems over time in most places in the country due to the humidity. The heat loss outside to the air-conditioned interiors further increases the pressure. Indian domestic life is social, barefoot, and multi-functional – and places demands on flooring that a converted European warehouse was never designed to meet.
This does not imply that the industrial interior design style cannot be applied in this case. It implies that it must be explained in its own terms before it can be translated into spaces that really perform. Industrial design visual language is completely feasible. The question is what materials will bear that language under Indian conditions, and why laminate flooring has become such a feasible solution for Indian houses.
The Floor Is Where It All Shows.
In industrial interiors, surfaces attempt to be bold. Bare brick is eye-catching. The atmosphere is created by bare concrete walls. Hard, reflective edges are produced with steel and glass. All these factors work in a loud and visible manner.
The floor is different. It is the biggest continuous element of the room, and the only element that unites all the zones, passes under all the pieces of furniture and touches all the walls. A well implemented industrial interior design, the floor will transfer the intentional rawness of the space to the whole area of the space silently and continuously. It needs to have the same sense of belonging to the same world as the materials surrounding it, but it should never strive to compete with the materials in attracting attention.
It is a particular and challenging brief. The floor must possess a tonal quality and visible texture over an extensive space, without being visually confusing. It must be used and genuine but not fatigued. It carries on all that the environment demands of it – silently, steadily, and beneath the surface.
What laminate flooring India adds to this requirement and how it adapts to Indian climatic conditions is a pragmatic discussion. It starts with knowing what deliberate rawness entails, and why the floor is where it is most seen.
