Roar’s design for the space nods to the architecture of Jaipur, the rug manufacturer’s home city, and in particular, its famous stepwells built with staggered terraces and dizzying sets of stairs all the way down into their depths.

“The design concept was born from a simple sketch that I did after my first meeting with the client,” Roar founder and architect Pallavi Dean told Dezeen.

“I was so inspired by the stepwells that I’d seen in Jaipur during my first visit that I wanted to bring them to life in my design,” she added.

“I wanted to strip the ideator minimum though, and work within its architectural purity, in order to avoid any plain pastiche.”

In Dean’s design, the repeating staircases feature across three of the walls, making a striking impression in the double-height space while connecting the ground-floor browsing area to the offices and sales suites on the mezzanine.

The arches that are typical to stepwells also feature in the 780-square-meter showroom. Forming doorways or alcoves wallpapered with decorative rugs.

The hues in these rug displays are echoed in the carpet on the stairs. It is rendered in a jewel-toned rainbow color gradient starting at indigo on one side of the space and ending in ruby red.

Dean called the construction of the staircases a “structural feat” that required navigating challenging approval processes.

“We had to ensure the steps were safe to use by installing a glass which gives the impression that they’re floating when they’re actually carefully enclosed!” she said.

Also nestled between the staircases on the ground floor are two rooms of immersive experiences, the Sapphire and Emerald rooms. They are covered floor-to-ceiling with rugs custom-made by Jaipur Rugs’ weavers as part of the brand’s Manchaha initiative.

In the project, the artisans design the rugs themselves spontaneously on the loom as they weave. Using leftover yarn from the industry.

They would typically use a broader range of colors for the rugs in this series. But be briefed to work with emerald and sapphire tones for the showroom and given the precise dimensions.

The lack of sound in these rooms is created by the acoustic properties of the rugs. Adds a dramatic dimension to visitors’ experience, according to Dean.

Next to the rooms, along the fourth wall, is the showroom’s rug library. Custom-made sliding panels allow visitors to browse freely.

The walls and floors are finished with a warm-grey micro-cement and textured paint. Forming a neutral base for the colorful features.

Metallic rose gold features in doorframes, cabinetry, and other details. Another reference to Jaipur, which is sometimes called the Pink City.

“All of our designs come from a place of empathy, and this one is no exception,” Dean said. “We always endeavor to understand what the client is trying to achieve. Here, the client was trying to create a bold statement for their first flagship store in the Middle East.”

“It also had to be an experiential space, which can be intuitively navigated by its users. This is why, for example, we decided to build bespoke rug libraries with sliding doors for clients to flick through instead of having the rugs stacked on the floor, which, in my opinion, are so inconvenient to browse!”