Faiza Seth launched Casa Forma in 2007 as a property development business. After the global financial slowdown in 2008, Faiza took a more conservative view of investing generally and evolved Casa Forma into a bespoke, luxury interior design and architecture firm. Radhika set up Luxury Interiors London in 2004 as a procurement agency. In 2006, Luxury Interiors London started taking on larger sourcing projects and a year later the company won its first international project for one of Asia’s largest developers.
Can you please you give us a brief description of both your backgrounds?
Faiza: I was born in India, but moved with my family to the United States when I was two and grew up in Chicago. Living all over the world has given me an understanding of different cultures and an appreciation of diversity. This has been incredibly useful in our work as it has inspired me with stylistic elements taken from the various cultures, but also, as so much of our work has an international focus, it has helped me build relationships with people from diverse backgrounds all over the world, leading to both personal and professional enrichment.
Radhika: I think one of the reasons Faiza and I work so well together is that we have had similar backgrounds with a broad range of cultural experiences throughout our upbringings. I was also born in India, but moved with my family to Canada when I was three. I then went to boarding school for a few years in India before returning to London. Since then, I lived all over the US before finally returning to London in 2004.
How did the merger of Casa Forma and Luxury Interiors London come about?
Faiza: I was introduced to Radhika through a mutual friend and I just felt that Radhika was driven, hardworking and had the same vision as me. I had built Casa Forma’s brand over the past nine years and our design expertise, the ability to offer both architectural and interior design services, our brand and our reputation has Casa Forma longevity in the interior design and architecture industry.
What do you believe that this collaboration will bring to future Casa Forma London clients?
Radhika: Our companies do have complementary strengths and weaknesses, and we’ve found that through sharing our knowledge, expertise, and with a stronger combined team, the business benefits and ultimately the experience is better for our clients.
Do you both have signature styles? If so how will you merge these together?
Faiza: My personal style is classic contemporary with a touch of Art Deco which I feel is sophisticated and timeless. However, Casa Forma as a company doesn’t have a particular design style or formula and we focus our designs to suit the needs of each of our clients.
Radhika: As it’s our clients and not us who will be living in these properties, the design should be tailored to their lifestyle and personal taste. So for each of our projects, we assign one lead contact, who the client is able to talk to about the design and what it is they require from the space. This allows our clients to be exactly as involved or removed from the design process as they want.
What can you each bring to Casa Forma London?
Radhika: Funnily enough we both studied economics in university, so together we have a good understanding of the business issues surrounding the property market. Personally, my prior work with Luxury Interiors London has given me a lot of experience in sourcing luxury products and building up the contacts required to have access to some of the most exclusive items and opportunities which our clients are seeking.
Faiza: I have always enjoyed working with clients to create beautiful spaces. From the nine years that I have spent with Casa Forma, I have gained a large amount of experience in the structural changes that can be made to a home in order to improve the experience of living there. I often think that the largest part of our work is the structural redesign, as it can change so much about a property; from the levels of light in a room, to the flow of people through the property, structural redesign truly changes the character of the building before we even begin thinking about fixtures and fittings.
What inspires each of your designs?
Faiza: I have always been inspired by the beauty that surrounds us all the time. My inspiration comes from nature, art, travel, and simply the observation of everyday beauty.
Radhika: I’m inspired by the people we work with, both the Casa Forma in-house team, but also our clients. They present us with design challenges every day that we have to come up with interesting and beautiful solutions for and often that has led to some of the most original and striking pieces that we’ve worked on.
How will you work together on schemes?
Radhika: One of the most exciting elements of the design process is the collaborative brainstorming period where we all work as a team. It’s important for us that we bring together our individual experience and expertise to create the best possible finished project for our clients.
Do you both have strengths and weaknesses that the other does not?
Radhika: We do try and work together on most of our projects so that each of us can add our own thoughts and design ideas. Faiza is an incredible strategist and manages all elements of branding and marketing.
Faiza: Radhika is very good at understanding and creating relationships with our clients and ensuring effective delivery of our services through our incredibly talented international team of architects and designers, so often she handles those aspects.
What do you admire about each other’s companies?
Radhika: One of the things that I admire about Casa Forma is the success it has had over time. You see so many design companies that have really great ideas, but lack the longevity and credibility that Casa Forma has achieved. It really is a testament to Casa Forma’s award-winning team, brand strength and maintaining consistent high standards and attention to detail that it has continued to grow for so many years.
Faiza: Luxury Interiors London had strong business strategies and really good leadership that allowed it to become established in an industry with lots of competitors. I think it’s an impressive feat that shows that those heading up the company are strong and decisive.
What is your favourite project from each other’s portfolio?
Radhika: One Hyde Park is my favourite project from Casa Forma’s portfolio because it truly represents bespoke luxury design and the timeless, refined elegance that Casa Forma strives to achieve. My opinion coincides with general consensus as the property has won numerous design awards since completion.
What do you feel is a key consideration for designers working with high-end interiors?
Radhika: A lot of people assume that high-end interiors is all about sourcing the most exclusive and expensive items and throwing a vast amount of money at a project in general, however that’s not how we approach design. Often, our high-end clients want creativity and value, along with good quality. At Casa Forma, our ethos is that high-end design is about time spent on a project, so we work with our client to create a space that is perfectly suited to them.
Faiza: For me it’s about providing a fully bespoke service to deliver properties with beautiful, timeless interior design. We ensure that our projects aren’t focused on filling a property with the same pieces from high-profile designers that many people will have, instead we make a lot of the fixtures and fittings in-house so they are truly bespoke. Our design studio does of course believe in timeless, refined elegance, but our service and design style is entirely client focused.
How are your teams finding working together?
Radhika: As with any merger, it has taken some time for everyone to settle in and for us to do some reorganisation and structuring to make Casa Forma stronger and more efficient than ever before, but I feel the merged Casa Forma London team that we have today is the result of drawing together the best aspects of both companies.
Is there a particular type of project that you would both like to work on?
Radhika: At Casa Forma London we love every project we work on, it’s what makes us so good at what we do. Commercially, I love working on innovative projects, true industry trend-setters. We are currently in negotiations with some of the world’s top international developers to work with them on launching the next generation of luxury developments in various markets. Privately, I love working with clients who are willing to let us be creative, think outside the box and design them a truly luxury residence designed around their life and personal tastes.
What materials do you like to work with and why?
Faiza: There is a wide range of fantastic innovative materials available these days and we are always researching for new, exciting finishes and solutions for our projects. We specify a lot of handmade, bespoke materials specially developed by artists such as gilt decorative glass, antiqued glass mirrors and semi-precious stones. I like to work with these materials because they result in beautiful, unusual design elements that people may not have come across before.