The Art of Storytelling in Design: Creating Relationships, Lasting Impact, and Deep Meaning

By Shilpa Suresh

Shilpa Suresh is a Senior Associate at Rockwell Group. Since joining the firm in 2015, she has worked on a diverse range of projects, from academic institutions to luxury residential amenities to hotels, in the U.S. and abroad. Current and recent work includes Johns Hopkins Student Center in Baltimore, MD; 555 Pennsylvania for Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C.; The Camellias Club for DLF in Gurgaon, India; and Costa Smeralda cruise ship.

With a strong passion for design and education, Shilpa is a regular participant in student programs at Parsons School of Design, Savannah College of Art and Design and the IIDA New York Chapter, engaging in one-on-one mentorships, portfolio reviews, guest critiques and panel discussions. Shilpa graduated from Parsons School of Design with a Master of Fine Arts in Interior Design and received a Bachelor of Architecture from R.V. College of Architecture in Bangalore, India.

Childhood

As a child in India, I looked forward to the frequent power outages we experienced. That's when my family would take a break from chores and gather on the terrace or the front patio with bowls of dal and rice. All eyes would turn to the family storyteller, my grandmother.

It is understood that personality is formed during childhood, when the process of socialization begins within a family. Ideas that are imparted become opinions, ethics that are taught form value systems, and rituals support spiritual or religious beliefs.

My grandmother’s stories calmed my inquisitive mind, shaped my ideas, gave wings to my imagination, and gave me access to our culture. These folktales allowed me to see a world beyond the constrained surroundings of home and school. The storytelling sessions were my first form of socialization.

I was also fascinated with making things by hand. It was my habit to collect and create compositions from sand, dirt, flowers, twigs, colorful thread, and every vegetable that Amiya, as I called my grandmother, generously supplied from her kitchen. I would explore my imagination in this way, designing in sync with my own stories, forming a link between my childhood and my journey with design.

Essence

We grow up and ruffle the feathers of childhood. In pursuit of education, career, and family, those childhood years seem like a dream. But the power of my grandmother’s stories to convey emotion and culture and unite us as a family are what I also found so powerful about the promise of design: Just like folklore, as designers we can frame, choreograph, set the scene, create thresholds, transform, and fragment—the ingredients for dynamic stories and architecture and interiors.

At architecture school, I became curious about what happens when the spaces we inhabit are developed with a story in mind. At Rockwell Group, whose work I admired as a student back in India, and where I’ve been lucky to work for the last eight years, there is always an opportunity to answer the question, “How do we tell a story with design?"

Rockwell Group begins every project by spending time with clients to understand the backstory and the place, program, and audience. After deep research around context, location, and history, we develop the design. The use of materials is a crucial component of storytelling. The quality of surfaces, the tactile nature of fabrics, and the mood established by color and pattern collectively engage the senses to help tell stories. The repetition of visual motifs crafts a formal aesthetic infused with a message.

This way of designing invites and involves listening to a story and telling a story through design, which fundamentally creates relationships. And the presence of a relationship in an experience creates deep meaning and lasting impact. We develop a narrative; a progression through spaces and experiences that illuminates key points like characters, setting, plot, and resolution.

In Practice

I had the opportunity to put this framework into practice working on Rockwell Group’s design of The Camellias Club for DLF led by Partner Shawn Sullivan, which opened in the summer of 2021. The 160,000-square-foot bi-level residential clubhouse in Gurgaon, India, offers world-class amenities and creates a sense of community among the residents who live in the surrounding towers. The design team knew we didn’t want residents to feel compartmentalized; we wanted to create a series of shared experiences, where people could relax and celebrate with family, friends, and meet other residents. In India, most of the gated communities don’t offer this level of convenience and socialization. Residents do not typically have access to such a wide range of amenities right outside their doors. The project creates an entirely different paradigm for luxury living in the city, emphasizing the luxury of shared experiences. Our goal was to create an amenities space that architecturally and programmatically offered an elevated living experience — all supporting health and well-being.

The Camellias Club has seven different landscaped concrete roofs at varying levels. These roofs are inspired by abstracted versions of the Camellias petal, a celebrated flower in India. The building façade is animated by different materials — striated stone, glass, and metal panels — and its volumetric irregularity. The clubhouse sits on a monumental water feature across from the residential towers, creating a fluid transition between the two. The water feature itself is divided into five reflecting pools embedded with walking paths, providing the sensation of walking on water. These paths circulate the water feature and dip above the clubhouse as well as below it, directly integrating the water and garden elements into the architecture.

The arrival experience begins in a double-height lobby that is buzzing with energy. A heroic spiral staircase sits above a reflecting pool. An emphasis on holistic wellness is reflected in the clubhouse’s extensive amenities. These include a fitness center, a spa, yoga and Pilates rooms, an indoor pool, juice bar, salon, and barber shop. Our design decisions were guided by the seven "energies" that contribute to an individual's longevity, from “active” to “regenerative.”

Rockwell Group designed the interiors to converse with the senses. The lobby has a golden glow, attributed to the oversized ceiling petals, stunning metallic bronze staircase, and pleated leather panels on the pilasters, which was a challenge to achieve locally. We worked with local artisans to obtain the right leather, with padding and enough pull to wrap around the curved edges of the panel.

DLF Camellias, The Residential Lobby. Photography by Karam Puri.

The glow from the lobby extends to the grand theatrical entrance of a private event space on the lower level, a gold and glamorous ballroom with sinuous sofas and dramatic chandeliers. The walls are composed of a series of wood and gold leaf panels with soft concave profiles, emulating the delicate camellia flower petal. During a site visit late one night, our team worried that the gold tone overpowered the entire room, and what was meant to be subtle gold leaf brush effect was looking like a solid gold panel. It was all installed and there was nothing we could do to bring down the tonality. It turned out that the client and residents love this bold space and they take very chance to show it to off to their guests: Proof that the audience does indeed complete the story! Gold is a very important color in Indian culture and the ballroom was big hit.

We were excited as a team to create unique murals and sculptures with local artisans who wove the magic and poetry of their craft to enhance the story of each room. Upon entering the private dining rooms, guests are immediately greeted by a large-scale mural depicting enchanted settings with hand-painted trees and white gold leaf on canvas. A large seamless hand-painted wall covering depicts a jungle safari scene in the private dining room. The classic party room has plaster-finished walls with raised Henna-inspired patterns. These captivating details create an interactive experience where the boundaries between real and surreal are blurred, and residents are invited to continue the story.

Artisans are extremely passionate about their stonework in India, and we wanted to tap this expertise. There are twenty different types of stone in the clubhouse, from neutral, painterly elements to colored exotic marbles used on feature walls and countertops. In the spa, the monochromatic neutral look and the texture of stone was our focus. Stone is such a rigid material, so it was interesting to express its liquidity and softer qualities with amorphic forms, with basins, tables, and carved marble stools beside the sofa.

To prevent the stone from feeling too cold, we introduced curved edges and pleated ribbing that suggest comfort and warmth. There were plenty of intricate floor patterns, with two or more stones throughout the project. The sense of holistic wellness we wove throughout the project was further emphasized by using finely crafted materials and natural elements.

DLF Camellias, The Spa Vitality Pool. Photography by Karam Puri.

DLF Camellias, The Clubhouse Arrival Lobby Stairs. Photography by Karam Puri.

Observations

The Camellias Club was a particularly meaningful project for me, in part because it was in India, but also because I was able to bring together the central importance of narrative in our lives and in the spaces we inhabit. As designers we are fascinated by and obsessed with creating social connections and memorable experiences with the built environment. Emotions and narratives create honesty and authenticity in hospitality design, even when they are used subtly and abstractly. Our subconscious reads the power and intent of a space every time we encounter it. Every space has a story to tell.