Majlis Interior Transformation in a Dubai Villa
A complete redesign and fit-out of the formal majlis in a five-bedroom villa in Mirdif, owned by a UAE national family who had lived in the property for 16 years. The original majlis, fitted out in the early 2000s, was an 8 by 6-metre room with a plaster ceiling in a heavy arabesque pattern, ceramic tile floors, a diwan in a dated burgundy brocade and wall panelling in a dark stained timber. The brief was to transform the room into a contemporary Arabic majlis of the highest quality, appropriate to the family’s standing in the community and capable of serving as the primary receiving room for guests of significance including extended family, community leaders and business associates. Scope: full strip-out and reinstatement of all finishes, new bespoke ceiling, new floor, new diwan, new joinery, new lighting and smart home. Timeline: 9 weeks.
01. The Brief
The family’s patriarch opened the briefing conversation with a single sentence that defined the entire project: the majlis is the most important room in any home, and ours does not reflect who we are today. What followed was a specific and culturally informed brief from a client who knew the Arabic design tradition well and wanted a room that honoured it with complete seriousness. The new majlis was to have a diwan of the finest quality textile that could be sourced. The ceiling was to make a genuine architectural statement. The floor was to be in natural stone. The lighting was to be warm, controlled and appropriate for reception of guests at any time from mid-morning to late evening. The room was to feel unmistakably Arabic, unmistakably contemporary in its quality, and unmistakably specific to this family and this villa.
03. The Concept
The design concept was derived from a brand intelligence session with the firm’s managing partners in the first week of the commission. Three brand values emerged as the primary design drivers: established authority (the firm is not a startup and does not want to look like one: the design language must communicate depth of experience and financial gravitas); discretion (the firm’s clients include several high-net-worth individuals and family offices for whom visual discretion and understated quality are more reassuring than expressive design ambition); and precision (the firm’s work product is characterised by analytical precision and attention to detail, and the office must express this in the calibre of every surface and every detail).
The design response was a palette and material programme of absolute restraint and absolute quality: Pietra Grigia Beige limestone in a honed large format for the reception and boardroom floors; smoked oak veneer joinery throughout with 0.5mm shadow gaps as the quality standard; a palette of warm charcoal, warm white and brushed bronze at every hardware and light fitting position; and a complete absence of branded graphics or applied signage beyond the reception desk’s integrated bronze letterform. The design communicates the firm’s values entirely through material quality and spatial precision, without any decorative assistance.
05. Result
The before and after of this majlis is among the most dramatic single-room transformations in Kat Black Design Studio’s project history. The before state was a room that, despite its generous proportions and its correct spatial organisation, communicated the design vocabulary of two decades ago in every surface and every material. The after state is a room of genuine architectural distinction: the coffer ceiling creates a gravitas and a spatial completeness that the flat arabesque plaster of the original never approached; the Jerusalem Gold limestone floor gives the room a weight and a warmth that the ceramic tile could not; and the new diwan, with its hand-woven silk brocade and its al khatim arm dividers, is the finest quality diwan that the studio has produced for any commission.
The Lutron lighting system transforms the room’s character across the day: in the morning light with the motorised silk blind at half-raise, the room is a composed, daylit receiving space. In the evening at the Reception scene, the chandelier’s amber drops and the warm cove light create an atmosphere of extraordinary intimacy and warmth that is, in the client’s own words, exactly what a majlis should feel like.
“Our guests ask about this room every time they visit. Some of them have been coming to this house for fifteen years and they say they had never truly seen the majlis until now. Kat Black understood what we wanted from the first meeting: a room that is completely Arabic, completely modern in its quality, and completely ours. They delivered exactly that.”
Managing Partner
UAE national family, Mirdif
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