Marking its 22nd year into its design sojourn, ADND inhabits a home that heralds a new advent in myriad ways.
The city’s map was splayed – an engaging real estate-shifting quest began months before. In the heart of Mumbai’s Vile Parle, awaited the flick of a design wand rested a 100-year-old industrial compound inhabited formerly by the prestigious heritage enterprise of Parle, a household name. Decrepit, mould-ridden, and embodying dilapidation with its crackled floors, the site was roosted on the third floor of the premises.
Raw, gritty, and inherently endowed with architectural character, this silo building was rough around the edges. Hugging the railway lines along its western edge, the building’s interiors harness an interplay of morphing internal heights and hold a picture window into the bustle of the city.
Our design intent was to delve into this holistic, adaptive reuse endeavor with a keen eye on bold architectural nuances and utilize materials as a medium to convey what evolved luxury can resemble in the current Indian design landscape. The unfinished canvas, askew walls, elongated girders, and chunky bolts were seen as remnants of the past debuting in the space, akin to an inheritance passed down among the hands of successive generations. The shell holds within a symphony of terrazzo-embedded concrete floors cast in situ, met by textured walls, colossal metal-frame doors, and isolated pools of color gracing the office in coy doses.
This space can be viewed as a comma, a profound symbol that creates pause while making room for the new in the same breath. For the members of ADND, this studio is a sanctuary of boundless creativity, self-expression, and growth, reflecting their shared experiences as they inhabit this architecturally significant space that they call their own.