Mana Workplace/ IKSOI Studio

Architects: IKSOI
Area: 190 m²
Year: 2022
Photography: Ishita Sitwala
Structural Engineering: Caes Consultants
Furniture: Sourced from Alang
City: Ahmedabad
Country: India

Mana is a workplace project developed within an abandoned industrial structure in Ahmedabad, reimagined by IKSOI as its own studio. Rather than pursuing a conventional adaptive reuse strategy, the project approaches the site as a spatial palimpsest, allowing traces of the former factory to remain legible while carefully reconfiguring how the space is occupied and perceived. The original footprint is retained, but the ground plane is selectively raised, altering proportions and transforming former industrial openings into unconventional windows. This subtle shift creates a layered reading of past and present without relying on overt restoration gestures.

The studio is organized as two primary volumes arranged around a reworked courtyard, encouraging non-linear movement and discovery. Circulation is intentionally ambiguous, with entrances concealed within walls and passages revealed gradually. A restrained material palette of dark granite and teak wood grounds the interiors, while repeated arches introduce rhythm and spatial segmentation within elongated work areas. Furnishings and sculptural details sourced from reclaimed contexts further reinforce the project’s emphasis on memory, reuse, and reinterpretation. Mana ultimately positions itself as a contemplative workspace where architecture serves as a mediator between inherited structures and contemporary practices.

The project emerges from an intensely personal context, occupying a factory once owned by the family of the studio’s founders. This origin informs an architectural approach that resists erasure, choosing instead to engage directly with what remains. From the street, Mana offers little indication of its interior character, concealed behind tall compound walls that separate it from the surrounding industrial fabric. Entry becomes an act of transition, with the first encounter unfolding through color and mass rather than signage or formal thresholds.

Inside, the spatial logic is deliberately destabilized. Walls curve, openings appear at unexpected heights, and familiar architectural cues are withheld. The raised courtyard alters eye levels and relationships between interior and exterior, turning former doors into windows and reframing the memory of industrial use through everyday occupation. Movement through the site is self-directed, with paths that reveal themselves slowly, reinforcing a sense of exploration rather than efficiency.

Material choices remain restrained but intentional. Dark stone floors lend weight and continuity, while teak introduces warmth against lime-plastered surfaces finished in muted pink tones. Arches punctuate the primary workspace, breaking down its length into smaller zones without fully enclosing them. At the quieter edge of the site, a concealed courtyard offers retreat and reflection, reinforcing the studio’s inward-looking character.

Throughout Mana, small moments of whimsy appear in the form of sculptural gargoyles placed along walls, their presence subtle yet memorable. Paired with reclaimed mid-century furniture, these elements contribute to an atmosphere that values narrative and discovery over polish. The result is a workspace that operates less as a finished object and more as an evolving conversation between memory, architecture, and daily practice, allowing the building’s past to quietly inform its present.