A creative workspace in the heart of Mumbai's emerging design district, the Urban Workshop reimagines the office as a vertical village of interconnected studios.
The building occupies a narrow 25-foot-wide plot in a dense mixed-use neighbourhood. The constraint of the site drove the concept: rather than fighting the narrow proportions, the design embraces them, creating a vertical atrium that pulls light through the entire depth of the building. The facade is a folded metal screen that modulates privacy and daylight while giving the building a distinct identity on the street.
Five levels of studio spaces are connected by an open stair that doubles as a gathering space — wide enough to sit on, to pin up drawings, to hold impromptu critiques. The ground floor opens fully to the street, dissolving the boundary between public and private.
Material Palette
Terrazzo
Steel Mesh
Plywood
Glass Frit
Polished Concrete
Gallery
Design Approach
The Urban Workshop addresses a fundamental question of contemporary work: how can an office foster both focused individual work and collaborative exchange? The answer is a section that alternates between contained, cave-like spaces and open, light-filled volumes.
The metal screen facade is calibrated to the sun path — deeper folds on the west elevation, shallower on the north — reducing heat gain while creating a constantly shifting play of light across the interior surfaces throughout the day.