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.