MAKING

The Bricolage Method

The word “making” is central to everything this studio does. Not making as in manufacturing — but making as a mode of thinking. At Bricolage Bombay, the design process is inseparable from the act of physical, digital, and conceptual making. We sketch. We model. We prototype. We build mockups at full scale before a single wall goes up, because we believe that the only reliable test of an idea is its encounter with the real world.

Across architecture, interiors, museum design, and multimedia, our process moves through four recurring phases: Research and Design Thinking, Drawing and Representation, Making and Prototyping, and Delivery and Evaluation. Each phase feeds back into the others. We do not work in a straight line from brief to building — we work in an expanding spiral, revisiting assumptions and sharpening ideas with every iteration.

Our process in Architecture

Our Process

Our process in Architectural projects involves detailed analysis of the project and mapping stakeholders. We understand the client’s budget and time constraints. Based on these and the nature of the brief we apply design thinking exercises to work out solutions. The project is divided into 4 parts Schematic Design, Concept Design, Design Development, and Good for Construction drawings and their evolution.

Design Thinking

Before we draw a line, we ask: Why does this building need to exist? What problems must it solve that cannot be solved by smaller, cheaper interventions? What does this community need that it cannot articulate for itself? Design thinking, for us, is not a methodology imported from a consulting manual — it is the ethical foundation of architectural practice. We map stakeholders, understand budget realities, think about phasing, and consider how a building will age. Because a building that cannot be maintained is a burden, not a gift.

Research

We learn by doing. By case studies. By visiting comparable projects across the world — through travel, through books, through the rigorous study of precedent. We conduct stakeholder interviews, run user research sessions with children and adults, observe how communities actually occupy spaces, and challenge ourselves to design for realities, not ideals. At MuSo, we ran VR playtests with children before a single exhibit was manufactured. At Avhyay Resort, we studied the existing 1985 structure in detail before proposing a single intervention. Research, for us, is not preliminary — it is ongoing.

Drawings

The act of drawing is the act of thinking made visible. We begin with freehand sketches, loose and provisional, allowing the hand to move faster than the mind. These sketches evolve into computational models, then into construction documents, then — uniquely — into Virtual Reality environments that allow clients and consultants to walk through unbuilt spaces with uncanny fidelity. Our 3D team works in Rhino, Revit, SketchUp, Lumion, and Unreal Engine. Drawing, at every scale and in every medium, is where architecture lives before it is built.

Models

Nothing reveals the truth of a design like a model. We build laser-cut models, and hand-crafted cardboard studies. We mock up material junctions at full scale before specifying them in the drawings. At Oyster’s showroom in Andheri, we produced detailed sample boards of the parametric dividing wall before the masons began. At MuSo’s Make Lab, we prototyped exhibit furniture and tested it with children before fabrication began.

Mock ups

We insist on mockups not as a luxury but as a discipline — because discovering a problem in a mockup is exponentially cheaper than discovering it on site.Nothing is perfect unless it is seen and accepted by the Human eye. Our insistence for mockups of design elements – is so that the whole design and construction team are aligned to the final outcome.

Our process of in Interior

Lighting Design

Great lighting design is invisible. Poor lighting design destroys everything the architect built. Bricolage Bombay approaches lighting with the rigour of a cinematographer — because light is not decoration, it is narrative. It tells you where to look, how to feel, what to notice. At Indriya Mishran restaurant, fabric-wrapped pendants and raw plaster walls conspired to make the food look extraordinary. At MuSo’s Discover Lab, dynamic lighting shifts with the theme of each zone. At the Riviera Pyramid, light transforms the glass pavilion from a restaurant by day into a glowing lantern by night.

Material explorations

Interior design at Bricolage Bombay begins with materials, not moods. We believe that a material is a position — about sustainability, about craft, about cultural belonging. We have worked with Mangalore brick imported to Khopoli, reclaimed temple doors from Bhavnagar, jailhouse grilles from Ahmedabad, acacia wood from Sawantwadi, and raw lime plaster applied by hand in Virar. We are developing internal tools for calculating the carbon footprint of interior material specifications, because we believe the industry must move toward accountability in material selection

Our process IN Multimedia Design

Khirkee 2027 (Shown at Southbank Show London)

“Khirkee 2027” a Digital Media Installation – is perceived through the lens of a girl, a migrant. There are no guns; instead there are questions – of identity, of racial politics and gender.

The project tries to deal with a selective issues facing Khirkee like

The game starts in 2027 – where the player wanders seeing Khirkee through the lens of the main protagonist, a girl, a second generation migrant/refugee, a victim of racial tensions. The project uses the landscape of Khirkee 2027 as a narrative device – like a cross between a graphic novel and game. It operates like a controllable cinematic experience – based on the player’s wanderings – the landscape narrates stories. During the wanderings you may come across the Home of the girl, parts of the neighborhood she frequented and if lucky the people she loved most.

From the Studio Journal

Writing on architecture, interiors, experiential and spiritual design across Mumbai and India — drawn from our projects. Tap any cover to read the piece.

MAKING

The Bricolage Method

Our process in Architecture

Our Process

Design Thinking

Research

Drawings

Models

Mock ups

Our process of in Interior

Lighting Design

Material explorations

Our process IN Multimedia Design

Khirkee 2027 (Shown at Southbank Show London)

From the Studio Journal

Architecture & Interior Design in Mumbai

Museum, Exhibition & Experiential Design

Hospitality, Restaurants & Waterfront

Commercial, Retail, Workspace & Home

Institutional, Cultural & Spiritual

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