Page 40 - Reside Magazine Lusk Associates

Crafting Joy

C alling Suchi Reddy a multi-hyphenate creative really doesn’t
do her justice. In the past year, the architect, designer, artist,
and founder of New York-based studio Reddymade launched
her first furniture collection, in collaboration with luxury
Indian textile atelier Ekaya Banaras; curated an exhibition
celebrating Indian craft at New York gallery Salon Design;
created an installation for the world’s largest color library; taught architecture
students at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning
and Preservation—and still found the time to design a variety of residences,
boutiques and public projects. One could say that a dedication to constant
experimentation drives Reddy’s prolific practice, but she often describes
it with a softer term: feelings.
“Conceptually, that’s the through line” in every project, says Reddy, who
established her studio two decades ago. “What are the feelings that I want
to be able to explore? What are the feelings that my clients want to feel? And
how can we use the environment to amplify that?” Though this approach may
seem difficult to apply to furnishings or finishes, surprisingly, scientific
thought has long provided Reddy with a helpful framework. Using the guiding
principles of neuroaesthetics, a field of study that explores how art and
beauty can positively affect people’s wellbeing, Reddy designs projects that
not only look good, but make their inhabitants feel good, too. She calls this
mantra “form follows feeling.”
As diverse as Reddy’s work is, half of it is rooted in luxury residential
projects: designs for ground-up construction, renovations, and interior
transformations that help homeowners capture such desired moods in their
most personal spaces. Often, this process involves parsing the references they
“love and respond to” in order to create what they are really looking for: comfort.
“The opportunity to design something really tailored that conjures this
beautiful sense of being enveloped is a joy to me,” explains Reddy. “I always say
we work together [with clients] on our residential projects because we always
end up with something that neither one of us had any preconceived notion
of.” While the creative admits her own “modernist sensibility,” balancing it
with a client’s taste, contextual considerations and their lifestyle often leads
to bespoke solutions. Aesthetically, this means that Reddymade’s portfolio
of homes is just as varied as their owners.
For contemporary artist Ai Weiwei, Reddy created a 2,000-square-foot
linear extension to his upstate New York weekend house. Hexagonal in section
and minimalist in material palette, it provides a new two-bedroom guest
wing, each end capped by glazed porches. Strategically placed picture windows
along one side offer views over the farm property while protecting artworks
in the central living area, where they are displayed among his well-curated
selection of antique and vintage furnishings.
In Beverly Hills, California, Reddy transformed the interior of an angular
house into a soft, serene family abode, focusing on the opportunities of its
natural lighting to illuminate different rooms and objects over the course of the
day. Integrating plush modern furniture with carpeting and rugs crafted an

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