The client need.
A private residential client in Albany, California wanted something special for her baby’s crib accent wall. The brief held a few seemingly competing desires: something soothing enough for a baby's sleep environment, botanical and floral in spirit, modern and minimal to integrate into her home, and somewhere in there, a nod to her South Asian heritage. She had come to me drawn to the mandala form, but also to florals, to softness, to a concept that could age with her daughter rather than date quickly. The wall needed to hold all of that at once.
The creative solution.
The design process began by listening to the home. Her rugs, bathroom tile, wallpaper, and art all pointed toward a playful but organized abstract sensibility. The scalloped arch grid emerged as a direct response to those existing elements. Once on the wall, the arch became the perfect frame for the mandala: botanicalized and softened into linework that feels more like a flower than a geometric diagram, but rooted unmistakably in the mandala tradition.
The palette was developed through a thorough color study process before landing on the soft mauve: tonal, monochromatic, and deeply calming. Neutral but feminine, timeless but special.
The cultural thread.
Similar to my own family, this family navigates two worlds: a modern Bay Area home and a South Asian heritage that didn't have a strong visual presence in the space. For a mixed race caucasian and South Asian family, finding a visual language that could honor both without reducing either felt like the real design challenge. The mandala, reinterpreted through a modern, botanical, minimalist lens became that bridge.