Interview
Smita Thomas – 'Design is at its most radical when it reconsiders value itself'

What sets Indian design apart from other global styles?

Honestly, Indian design is often misunderstood. People abroad look at our spaces as full of color, layers, textures, and richness, and dismiss them as “too busy” or “overwhelming.”

We don’t design to impress outsiders, we design to reflect our way of being, which is full of life, history, and soul. That’s what makes Indian spaces truly unique.

But they forget that our design language comes from how we actually live. It’s rooted in a culture that’s vibrant, layered, and deeply personal.

We don’t design to impress outsiders, we design to reflect our way of being, which is full of life, history, and soul. That’s what makes Indian spaces truly unique.

How does traditional Indian design influence your work, and are there other cultures or styles that have inspired your creative approach?

Traditional Indian design doesn’t directly dictate my work, but growing up in this culture naturally shapes the way I see things, especially the openness to nuance, layering, and complexity. Those qualities seep into my design language, though interpreted in my own way.

Beyond India, I draw from a mix of global influences. I’ve always had a love for fantasy, and a deep fascination with Asia, from Japanese fashion to the streets of Hong Kong. Traveling and immersing myself in those environments leaves impressions that inevitably filter into my work.

When approaching a project, do you prefer the clarity of a set brief or the flexibility of creative freedom? What makes that balance important for you?

I don’t think of briefs as shackles or freedom as a free fall, I prefer when they spar a little. One of our projects titled “Not Xanadu” is a good example. The inhabitant ruled the brief, their lifestyle and sensibilities gave us the anchors, but in translating that into design, we had complete freedom to play, exaggerate, and reimagine.

Too rigid a brief feels like painting by numbers, and too much freedom can be like staring at an ocean with no shore in sight.

That’s the kind of balance I thrive for: when the client offers a clear pulse, but the design process still leaves room for mischief. Too rigid a brief feels like painting by numbers, and too much freedom can be like staring at an ocean with no shore in sight.

But when there’s just enough clarity and just enough space to experiment, that’s when projects like Not Xanadu come alive, deeply personal, yet still full of surprises.

You’ve said, “The focus ought not to be on specializing in a specific style but on reinventing how people perceive how their home or space ought to be.” Can you expand on that idea?

Specializing in a single style can feel limiting; you might perfect it, but it can become predictable over time. For me, design isn’t about sticking to a “signature look” so much as it’s about constantly re-questioning: what does a home really mean to the person living in it?

That’s why I say the focus should be on reinventing how people perceive their space. A house isn’t just walls, floors, and furniture; it’s memory, drama, ritual, escape, sometimes even theatre.

When we designed “Sandpaper & Silk,” the family’s deep roots in textiles pushed us to think of the home itself as a woven narrative, layers of material, history, and identity stitched together.

 The focus should be on reinventing how people perceive their space. A house isn’t just walls, floors, and furniture; it’s memory, drama, ritual, escape, sometimes even theatre.

With “Not Xanadu,” it was about letting the inhabitants’ rhythm dictate the brief, while we had the freedom to twist that into something playful and unexpected.

With “Pearls on Swine,” it was about reconciling opposites, one partner’s minimalism against the other’s whimsy, a tug-of-war that resolved into Brutalism laced with drama and mischief.

So rather than “specializing” in a style, I prioritise listening to what the inhabitants have to say about their idea of a home and then, translating quirks into form, and in creating spaces that feel like an experience rather than a category. It keeps the work alive, and honestly, it keeps me from getting bored.

Do you find that clients have become more willing to make bold design choices over the years? How do you encourage them to embrace innovative design?

Clients don’t always approach design with the same appetite for risk, some arrive with strong ideas, others with only an instinct. That’s where the designer’s role becomes critical: to expand their horizon and propose ideas they might never have articulated, but that ultimately feel deeply right to them.

For me, the way to encourage bold choices is by making the design deeply personal, drawn from the client’s own choices, experiences, and rhythms of living.

For me, the way to encourage bold choices is by making the design deeply personal, drawn from the client’s own choices, experiences, and rhythms of living. When a space reflects its inhabitants so precisely that it couldn’t belong to anyone else, it stops feeling generic.

And that’s when clients are most willing to embrace something new: because it doesn’t feel imposed, it feels like them, only revealed in a way they hadn’t imagined before.