Mana is a 190 m² workspace inserted into an abandoned factory in Ahmedabad. Rather than erase the existing compound and its two block footprints, the project works within their constraints and uses a regraded courtyard to recalibrate thresholds, light, and circulation. A restrained palette of lime-plastered masonry in muted pink, dark granite flooring, and teak elements frames a sequence of work bays and concealed courts. At the same time, former factory apertures are retained as a legible archive of use and time.
Mana Technical Information
- Architects: IKSOI Design Studio
- Location: Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
- Gross Area: 190 m2 | 2,045 Sq. Ft.
- Project Years: 2023 – 2024
- Photographs: © Ishita Sitwala
An industrial site, long left to stillness. The machines sold off, its workers long gone and the walls survived, albeit a bit overgrown. Here the past lingers in these quiet remnants.
– Mansi Mistry
Existing Fabric as Framework: Adaptive reuse in an industrial compound
Encircled by 4.5 to 6 meter high compound walls, the project reveals almost nothing to the street. The decision to hold the original footprints of the two factory blocks avoids facade-centric expression and positions the interior sequence as the primary site of architectural work. Within an 800 m² plot, only 190 m² are built, with the courtyard retained as the organizational core rather than treated as residual space.
This stance reads as a negotiation with the found condition. The existing massing logic remains legible, while new insertions shift how it is perceived and used. Instead of reconstructing a clean slate, the project accepts the industrial remnants as a framework for occupation, allowing traces of former production to structure contemporary workspace routines. The result is less a collage of old and new than a calibrated coexistence in which memory shapes the functional layout and atmospheric depth.
Manipulating Ground and Apertures: Rewriting thresholds
Raising the courtyard’s ground plane leaves the refurbished volumes partially sunken. This single move reorders thresholds, creating a nuanced edge where entry, outlook, and privacy are recalibrated by section rather than by door hardware or signage. The courtyard becomes an active datum, turning approach into a sequence of minor descents and ascents that temper exposure and frame views.
By preserving the pattern of original openings, the former factory hall doors now operate as windows at unconventional heights and sizes. Their eccentric placement resists standard ergonomic logic yet communicates a precise archive of past operations. From the sunken interiors, sightlines to the courtyard range from direct to oblique, creating a gradient of openness that alternates between work-focused enclosure and situational transparency. The project uses topography to choreograph these relationships, allowing the memory of production to persist as both figure and register.
Open Navigation and Spatial Rhythm
A singular axis does not prescribe circulation. The primary entry is camouflaged within curved walls, and a secondary access is folded into a narrow passage, so movement depends on discovery and local reading of edges. The two-block configuration remains intact, with a smaller bar along the boundary and a larger central volume. Paths across the courtyard reveal themselves incrementally, reinforcing the role of the open ground as an orienting void rather than a leftover yard.
Internally, a measured sequence of arches punctuates the extended, narrow plan. The arches subdivide the span into a series of work bays, producing a rhythm that supports concentration while maintaining visual permeability. At the quiet end of the axis, the principal office connects to a concealed courtyard, a small yet decisive subtraction that provides microclimatic relief and an alternate scale of occupation. In Ahmedabad’s hot, dry seasons, the sunken floor plate, shaded courts, and masonry mass help moderate temperatures without resorting to performative displays.
Material Restraint and Detail: Memory through elements
The palette is deliberately spare: lime-plastered monolithic walls in muted pink, dark granite floors, and teak joinery. Lime’s low sheen and vapor permeability give the surfaces depth and allow subtle aging, while the granite’s thermal mass grounds the rooms and stabilizes ambient comfort. Teak introduces tactile contact at thresholds and work surfaces, offsetting the chromatic uniformity without breaking the monolithic reading.
Small-scale insertions extend the narrative without sentimentality. Reclaimed mid-century Danish chairs fold an external history of use into the daily life of the studio, and zoomorphic gargoyles perched along walls act as functional-aesthetic markers that prompt close looking. Rather than rely on signage, wayfinding operates through color continuity, repetitive arches, and carefully calibrated edges that slow the pace of movement. The project teaches navigation through spatial cues, encouraging occupants to read surfaces, shadows, and apertures as information rather than decoration.
About IKSOI Design Studio
IKSOI Design Studio is an architecture practice based in Ahmedabad, India. Founded by Dhawal Mistry, the studio engages with the intersections of memory, materiality, and adaptive reuse. Their work reflects a profound sensitivity toward context and history, crafting spaces where architectural gestures are rooted in narrative and subtle transformation rather than overt reinvention. Through a restrained aesthetic and a thoughtful engagement with spatial experience, IKSOI reinterprets existing environments to evoke curiosity, discovery, and meaning.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Client: Dhawal and Mansi Mistry
- Photography: Ishita Sitwala
