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We build with what the site can already make.

An architecture and interior practice in Mumbai, working through material, structure and the craft available locally.

Start a project See the work

Every project begins as a question about structure. The drawing comes after the answer.

Selected work

Four projects that explain how the studio thinks.

The practice works across institutional, cultural, residential and religious programmes. What holds them together is a structural idea carried through to the last detail.

The Weaving Shed

A training centre built by the community that uses it, in load bearing brick with a catenary vault.

Western Maharashtra

River Arts Campus

An arts campus whose roof follows the river that runs beside it.

Karnataka

Temple of steps

Stone, stacked without mortar.

Religious

Courtyard housing

Dense low rise planned around shared ground rather than shared corridors.

Residential

The research is not a side project.

A parallel arm of the studio documents building traditions that are disappearing faster than they are being recorded, and feeds what it finds straight back into live projects.

Structure first
Span, load path and the local mason's actual capability set the form. If a vault cannot be built by the people on site, it is not the right vault.
Material within reach
Brick, stone and earth sourced within the district, because transport is the largest carbon line on most Indian projects and the least discussed.
Craft as a constraint
We design to the tolerances of hand building, not to the tolerances of a render. It changes the detail, and usually improves it.

Where the work has been published and shown.

International design pressProject features and a studio interview
Architecture archivesOffice profile and project record
University lecture seriesOn building practice in South Asia
Exhibitions and talksOngoing, in India and abroad

A full list of publications, awards and exhibitions is available on request.

Start a project.

We take on a limited number of projects a year so that the people who design them stay on them. Tell us about the site and the programme.

Location, rough area and whether the site is already acquired are the three things we need first.

Thank you. The studio has your note and will reply within the week.
Demo site. Fictional brand, built to show the interaction.