Excerpt: Smayaa, an interior design project by Shreyas Patil Architects, breaks free from the routine set-up of dental clinics by creating a relaxing and welcoming atmosphere that builds transparency and trust between doctors and patients. Angular spatial planning, indoor greens, playful jali patterns, and a soothing palette together redefine the clinical experience into one that feels open, refreshing, and free from the sense of passing time.
Project Description
[Text as submitted by architect] While our clients, the founding Doctors of Smayaa, approached us to design the interiors of a dental clinic, on the first floor of a commercial building, for a space measuring 38×32 feet, we immediately thought of breaking free from the routine set-up of dental clinics that house dental chairs within closed cubicles, with waiting areas that are strictly choreographed on a grid pattern seating arrangement.
Instead we questioned the approach of the design through the lens of its users; the confident doctors and their hopeful patients, wanting to get treated in spaces that have attributes of a relaxing and welcoming atmosphere building a relationship of transparency and trust between the two.
Three rows of cushioned benches are wrapped around planters; these along with the reception table collectively come together as the waiting area. The bench-planter duo are placed at an angle of 45 degrees to the treatment areas creating angular corridors that lead one to the various areas of the clinic framing multiple vistas of the inside.
As one enters the clinic, three semi-open spaces along the eastern side of the clinic assemble as treatment areas and consultation room, two of which have dental chairs that have their approach beyond the receptionist. These three get their spatial demarcations by a free standing concrete Jali wall painted white.
The Jali element adds a sense of play and pattern to the clinic. The saw tooth jali pattern is a metaphor to the tooth pattern, a fun way to bring in the elements of the human tooth anatomy abstracted into the interior design. The pleasure of indoor green cover continues into the treatment area, buffering the spaces with their foliages.
The entire clinic has a unified ceiling, with customized wallpaper that the patient’s gaze through while under treatment. The caricatured wallpaper has dental elements in a shade of beige, a colour that runs in the acrylic shutters of the storage units.
Across the waiting area, a carpentered enclosed unit holds the compressor room and a pantry. On the face of this unit, the clinic’s name Smaaya along with its ethos is displayed, serving as a feature wall. This takes the centre stage of the waiting area. A restroom is tucked behind this unit making it disappear from the setting.
On the western edge, two carpentered rooms on extreme corners serve as x-ray room and surgery room, with a space of sterilization sandwiched between the two. Carpentry units of all the treatment rooms and preparation rooms are finished with laminates and acrylic sheets, in shades of white, beige and light olive green, a colour palette that soothes the mood of interiors.
On the onset, from the time, one has arrived at the dental clinic until his exit; he is never reminded of passing time, a character most needed for a space such as a dental clinic. This is achieved through the offbeat spatial planning, the fun elements of jail’s and caricatures camouflaged with green covers and the subtle use of colours.
Images
