A Milestone
Wednesday the 12th of June marked a career milestone for me. With the help of my beloved family, colleagues and our entire team, we have built our first villa from the ground up. Designed by myself and my design team then built from scratch by our in-house construction crew, under the watchful eyes of my two brothers, I’m proud to say we did it. Punyisa Villas is a success and our first villa is complete and open for viewing.
Although a project like this is a collaborative effort by countless people, all who are to be thanked, my first and deepest thanks must go the the kind family that put their initial trust in us and purchased off-plan this first villa. It was this sale that set the ball in motion, gave our project credibility and instilled a fiery drive in all of us to make it happen.
Prior to construction the villa’s design was modified slightly from my original proposal, which is fine as essentially the ethos behind the project and my designs is that we build homes for people to live in, exactly as they dreamt of, with no compromise. This meant an extra bedroom and a wine room for our show villa. An easy alteration to the overall design without negatively effecting the space planning or the core of my architectural vision.
As we are able to utilise the first villa for several months as a showpiece for Punyisa, I was afforded the liberty of creating my own art pieces to decorate many of the spaces both inside and out. The gardens have large artworks made in our metal workshop including a giant welded orb that I just love. One of the guest rooms features a floor-to-ceiling artwork carved painstakingly on our CNC machine then hand painted in situ by myself and my talented cousin. There is mixed media, woven art, metal sculptures, ceramics and good old watercolour paintings. We created our own giant pendant lights from fibreglass, built ventilation walls from handmade clay bricks and experimented with resin encapsulated timber. We even built a waterfall!
On that Wednesday evening we hosted a small party to welcome people to the first villa of Punyisa. I think it was a great success and my heartfelt thanks go to everyone that worked 18hour days in that final week as the countdown was on and the opening day edged nearer and nearer. I’d like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank everyone who came down to celebrate with us and of course special thanks to all the guys that worked so hard on the night; the performers, the catering teams, the mixologists and all of those that quietly and confidently made sure everything went smoothly from start to finish!
Below are some photos from the night.
Event Night
About The Author
Mary Pakamard
“As an interior architect and designer, I strive for a balance between form and function. My approach is to create spaces and interiors that not only look good but also serve a purpose in people’s lives.”
