Studio Mumbai Architects: Work-Place

Rows and stacks of architectural elements, models, materials and samples, primarily but not entirely wood, comprise the warm, welcoming installation by Studio Mumbai at the Venice Biennale. Largely a tweaked version of their studio workshop in India, Work-Place offers a pleasing feeling of possibility, as though, if given free rein, anyone could sit down and participate in their collaborative building process.

Work-Place takes the messiness of a working architectural studio and distills it into a carefully considered balance between objects and space: the shelves of models and squares of floor tiles almost form improvised rooms, and what seems to be a full-scale wall mockup could double as a bench. In this, Work-Place is similar to their recent project, In-Between Architecture, which recreated the space between two buildings in Mumbai that served as an improvised home for eight people as part of the V&A’s 1:1: Architects Build Small Spaces exhibition.

In both projects, the architects have done an admirable job of recreating an existing space in a new context, creating something new while managing to hang onto the appealing qualities of the original.

More of Studio Mumbai’s work is featured in Phaidon’s 10x10_3 and The Atlas of 21st Century Architecture.

By Sara Goldsmith
Project Editor, Architecture & Design, Phaidon