Interior designs for the inner being

Interior designs for the inner being

Zulkifli Mohamad, Contributor, Jakarta

The main mission of a designer is to deliver the design for
the end user or client to enjoy, says Ted Sulisto, an American
trained interior-architecture designer, who is comfortable being
called by his first name.

Ted left Indonesia when he was nine years-old to follow his
father who was working for the Indonesian government as a
commodity trader in the Netherlands, United Kingdom and Germany.

He studied interior design in the United States at the
University of North Carolina, the University of Boston and the
Wharton Institute in Philadelphia, but he ended up working with
his family businesses, an oil company and travel agency, at the
age of 35.

"It took me at least two years before I designed my first
project, a friend's house. It was during this time that I started
to think about my own design firm," explained Ted, who looked
very much like a company executive in his gray suit and striped
shirt.

"The first house that I designed belonged to the Admiral of
the Navy, way back in 1989. It was a very large house overlooking
the Cinere golf course."

Ted said that he learnt a lot from the first project, through
trial and error. "It took me and my partner ten months to
complete the project. I designed a lot of furniture to suit the
house and what I can say about designing someone's house is that
you have to design the house for them, to suit what they like and
see how the house can function for them."

Though he was dressed in a suit, ready for a dinner
appointment after the interview, he was very relaxed and
straightforward when talking about his work.

After twelve years in the interior design business, he has
completed designs that fall into a number of different
categories, including public space projects like the renovation
of the Bronze Room at the National Museum of Indonesia, shops
like Poppy Darsono's first boutique in Pondok Indah and Warwick
Purser's Home store on Jl. Gunawarman, entertainment spaces such
as the Zanzibar Bar and Prego Restaurant-Bar on Jl. Iskandarsyah,
and various homes including the popular pictured Kartanegara
House that belongs to Anna Bambang, and serves as her guest
residence.

"The house was empty for many years because Ibu Anna was just
using the house for storage," said Ted.

He realized Anna's wish to design the house as a cozy little
European home that took account of the building's limited space.
"My client and I traveled to London to look at the details of
various urban houses. Though the house was consciously designed
in a classical European style, the client insisted on having the
Javanese woodcarving panel as the entrance, to tip you off that
you are entering another world. The Javanese panel symbolizes
where you are and who you are before entering," Ted explained.

He said he loved the challenge of battling limitations, such
as designing interiors for old houses.

When asked about the Indonesian fondness for classically
designed homes, he was quick to comment that the older generation
still preferred the classical design while the younger generation
was very much caught up in the modern-slick, minimalist and zen-
like designs that are now all the rage.

The Warwick Purser Home store on Jl. Gunawarman is one of
those minimalist examples. Designing the store was a real
challenge for Ted as the ceiling was very low. He was also unable
to make many changes to the position of the staircase and the
toilet as they were already part of the original structure.

An even tougher challenge was to design the store in a way
that would fit the image of Warwick Purser's products and to
produce a format that could increase product sales without
drowning the merchandise in the new design.

"Budget has never been a problem as you design within the
limitations of the available funds. You don't compromise on the
design but on the materials that you choose," said Ted who is
also very aware of cost management.

He criticized those of his colleagues who designed interiors
according to their taste and preference. They forgot about the
designer's responsibility of realizing the client's dream space
while at the same time guiding them to reach their target, not
designing something then figuring out how the owner of the house
could fit in, he added.

When asked what wealthy clients should concentrate on when
planning home interiors, he said that people should invest in
paintings and artifacts as well as book collections for the home
library.

"But of course the advice would differ from one client to
another," he added quickly.

He was very confident in describing his design signature as
definitely "the compatibility between the space and the human
being that interact within that area, whether it is a classically
designed space or a modern space." Ted Sulisto smiled as he
completed the sentence.