The Hindu Business Line : Knock wood!

When mills started turning into malls in the late 1990s, Mumbai-based interior designer Shilpa Kalanjee Pastala found her business opportunity. She realised that the huge Burma teak beams used in the construction of old buildings in the port cities of Mumbai and Kolkata would be excellent material for her furniture creations. She went on to launch Annexe, a brand of contemporary and mixed media furniture. "Burma teak is probably the toughest heartwood available today," she says.

There are other good reasons too. "The Burma teak we find today is seasoned wood, usually more than 100 years old. Moreover, it's environmentally friendly because it's recycled wood." Her furniture business is nearly eight years old.

A century-old wood heritage is not the only distinctive feature she lends to her furniture. The Annexe brand is a fusion of the old and the new. "My focus is on bridging functional design, nouveau aesthetics, old-world charm and iconic finishes," she says.

Burma teak was brought into India by the British in the 1800s to build their homes. These can be found in heritage buildings in coastal cities that are increasingly bulldozed and replaced by glass-and-granite edifices. However, the process of shaping old beams into furniture is not without its problems.

Nails, nuts and bolts have to be extracted carefully. The process is tedious and the carpenters run the risk of breaking machine blades. And wastage of timber is also high, says Shilpa. "So, if people imagine old Burma teak furniture is cheaper, it's not true," she contends. A lot of money and effort goes into readying the logs for furniture.

So how does she source her raw material? "We have identified demolition contractors, who keep our supplies going. But, remember, this cannot be mass produced as the designs and the raw material itself do not permit it."

Probably that explains why Annexe is tucked away in a highly commercial area in Bangalore, surrounded by godowns and auto service stations — an unlikely location for a premium furniture store.

"That's because our clientele is very exclusive and we need not be in a mall to attract them. In fact, we are not looking for the window-shopping crowd," she says. Starting her career as an interior designer in the 1980s, Shilpa soon realised the need for quality furniture with balanced proportions and an attention to detail. "It was impossible to find high quality teak furniture, unless it was an antique piece," she recalls. Others were colonial reproductions or imports. She decided to fill the gap.

Shilpa specialises in `mixed media', a term borrowed from the art world. This means, sometimes, as many as five different materials are used in a single creation. For instance, there's a wooden bench with old Chinese porcelain tiles, beaten copper sheets, glass and die-cast brass. A four-poster cot with mother-of-pearl inlaid work is another of Shilpa's favourite mixed-media creations.

A dining table has solid clear-glass blocks for legs, upon which a wooden tabletop rests. A complete reversal of this is the glass-topped centre table with wood and iron base. The Annexe range now spans living room, bedroom, garden, kitchen, study, and office furniture. Accessories such as duvets, bed sets, throws, cushion covers, candle stands, frames and hand-painted bottles are also on offer. "I want to make it a lifestyle destination," she states.

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