We are living in an age of readymade products where we can buy just about anything, off the shelf, home requirements included. Furniture, readymade shelves, bathroom fittings, etc, have always been available. A decade ago, kitchen modules hit the market in a big way. Though Indians were initially reluctant to buy these modules that sold at astronomical prices, soon the idea sank in.

Over a period of time modular kitchens started finding a place in newly constructed flats and individual homes. Of late, the horizons have extended beyond imagination — we now have readymade rooms for domestic purposes too!

Earlier on, readymade cabins were used in offices and cyber cafes, and public places like shopping centres with a view to lend privacy and basic facilities to the person who may use it as a workstation. Though the users of these cubicles realised that the little room did not give them total privacy and hardly protected them from external sounds, the idea clicked because partial privacy was preferred to no privacy at all.

Useful shapes

Cubicles in all geometric shapes and sizes, manufactured in wood or fibre glass with sliding doors and open top, flooded the market. One could easily buy these detachable rooms for home or office use. The price of these cabins can be anywhere between Rs 10,000 and Rs 30,000, depending on the size, material and storing space of the cabin. If you can get a good carpenter to work on the idea, you could customise the cabin according to your needs and also get it done for a slightly lower price.

Useful rooms

These cubicles can function as tiny rooms which can be dismantled and restructured as and when the requirement arises. If you go for foldable linear panels, the area of the room can be altered as per the need.

Architects opine that these cubicles are a boon in disguise especially in urban areas where the buildings reach the skyline. Buildings which have constraints about bearing a lot of weight can circumvent their problem by the utilising of these cubicles, both, for commercial and domestic purposes.

Those of you who are looking for very sturdy but thin and light structures and are willing to invest a little more, can opt for mild steel cubicles, which have a thickness of 1.66 mm on the exterior and are lined with plywood boards on the interior. These cubicles can be insulated to prevent possible accidents.

Besides privacy, protection and storage facilities, these cubicles have good lighting and ventilation. In short, they have all the amenities of a basic room. The inside the cubicle can be done up in a mind-boggling range of material — from leather to velvet, porcelain to plastics and wallpaper to plaster, according to the taste of the customer.

When cubicles, workstations or counters are placed in large air-conditioned rooms, thoughtful manufacturers bore several holes up to a length of one or two feet to facilitate circulation of air.

Anand Prasad, a practising architect, said the concept of eco-friendly workstations and cubicles are catching up.

Manufacturers are introducing provisions for hanging potted plants and placing small pots or bonsai trees in specially constructed corner stands which form a part of the cubicle.

With a difference

Builders who are taking up large-scale projects are finding that their customers no longer want to have homes that are identical to each other. Therefore many leading builders and organisations have resorted to laying pipelines, sanitary lines and electric lines that run through all the floors of the building uniformly and letting the carpet area of each floor vacant so that they can be customised according to the needs of the buyers. This arrangement can prove to be very beneficial in both formal and informal environments where little rooms can spring up to cater to occasion.

Dilip Singh, who runs Disha events, and who organises several property exhibitions especially in Hyderabad and Bangalore for non KAOPA members and interior decoration elements, mentioned that they already deal with readymade workstations and cubicles. Besides, they also customise these items according to the particular needs of the customer.

Cubicle makers are getting to be more and more innovative by the day and are coming up with designs which are not only creative but have improved facilities. The day is not far off when people will buy a spare cubicle that can be dismantled and packed and kept so aside so that it can be put to use when the need arises.