Interview with Jana Novakova
Interior Design Director of AALTO Exclusive Design
How have you been coping with COVID-19 and the confinement?
Confinement has been a very busy two-month period, with home office work. We attended our clients through Zoom, Skype, phone or email to provide design services. Although nothing replaces human contact and selecting materials together with your clients, home office also works. We took the opportunity to revise our processes to improve our services and also design new collection pieces. I believe this confinement has made people realise that they are more comfortable in a home office and with online shopping than ever before, and the trend will continue. We launched our online furniture e-shop platform before COVID-19 took hold, and following the pandemic, now we realise how beneficial it was to have taken this step. We will be regularly adding interesting products into the e-shop to grow this side of our business.
Tell us something about your design studio and what type of services you offer…
AALTO has been under new ownership, and run by managing partner Ness Yammine and myself as design director, for the last 12 months. We offer personalised interior design services, for both residential properties and commercial projects, to professional and private clients. We showcase our own luxury furniture collection and the various international brands we work with, in a 800 square metre multi-brand showroom on the Golden Mile in Marbella. We capitalise on our interior design studio, with the know-how of our team of architects, interior designers and graphic designers, as well as the expertise of carpenters in our manufacturing plant in Málaga, to offer bespoke projects, tailor-made to our clients’ needs and budgets, both locally and internationally.
What was your most recent project?
We have recently finalised the interior design of one of Urbania’s ICON Signature villas, marketed by NVOGA. One of the beauties of this unique development is its generous spaces and views, overlooking the golf course and the sea, transpiring tranquillity. We were inspired by the surrounding greenery, grey mountain and sea views to blend them into the interior of the living area, to create indoor-outdoor living. Each of the bedrooms has a different twist to it, bearing in mind the different tastes of family members, all of them having a homely and relaxed ambiance. As we do for all our projects, we approached this one as individual and unique, using high-quality finishes, bespoke furnishing items and art, and award-winning design lighting and brand furniture combined with our own Aalto collection pieces. The atmosphere created emphasises the natural beauty of the Icon signature villa location, where the sun further creates light and shadow effects in
a spectacularly unique way.
What are you working on now?
We are very busy working in parallel on projects delayed because of the confinement with new ones. One of our most stunning projects is a magnificent villa on the beach, designed by Rodolfo Jacobsen in a completely futuristic style not commonly seen in Marbella, which will be completed by August. We are working on projects in Puente Romano, Nueva Andalucía and Sierra Blanca – and even Luxembourg. Certainly, the future will bring changes in our industry, and we are confident we have the capacity to adapt to them and continue to provide high-quality services to our clients.
Avda. Bulevar Príncipe Alfonso de Hohenlohe,
Urb. Carolina Park Local L Marbella,
Tel. (+34) 951 919 092
info@aaltoexclusivedesign.com
www.aaltoexclusivedesign.com
