Automobile Design Studio, Mumbai

The site identified for the design studio was within their 64-acre Mahindra and Mahindra factory campus in Kandivali, with its low-lying sheds and lush greenery – an oasis reminiscent of Mumbai of the bygone decades amidst the concrete jungle surrounding it. It is perhaps the last of industrial campuses that occupied land on the highway of what was previously the outskirts of a fast-growing city.

The site consisted of five existing sheds, a total of 25,000 square-feet in size, nestled amongst similar-looking, contiguous sheds. The character of the site was, thus, distinctly ‘industrial’. The buildings were not the latest, spit and polish, prefabricated steel types. Rather, these sheds were relatively old – made with hand-held tools using standard rolled steel sections that were fabricated, welded and bolted at site to create the buildings, identical for most part but with the anomalies and imperfections that arise out of being handmade.

SJK Architects assimilated the influences of site, context and brand identity to conceptualise a rugged, raw space that uses natural light, celebrates its industrial and metallic context and compliments it with a neutral concrete backdrop. Neutrality was essential since the car and its styling are the ultimate protagonists in the space; the studio has to be the backdrop and not the competition. The use of metal sheets for design elements such as doors and screens was inspired by the extensive use of the material in the automobile industry and further impelled by Mumbai’s rich tradition of metal works.