Studio Pomegranate, Mumbai

There is a moment, arriving at the entrance of Studio Pomegranate’s space in Mahim, when the familiar and the new are held in a single frame. A rolling shutter, painted in deep pomegranate red, carries the studio’s logo at architectural scale, five uneven sides like the cross-section of the fruit itself, wrapped around the geometry of the door. In Marathi, the word stenciled at its centre reads “बंद”: closed. It is intended to amuse, but it has been set down with the same precision as everything else. The studio has occupied this 550 square foot space within the Owners Industrial Estate since July 2025. The move from a cramped 450 square foot mezzanine at the Shah & Nahar Industrial Estate in Lower Parel was, by most practical measures, a modest one. The new space is only slightly larger. But the ceiling rises to twelve feet, and in the evenings, when the western light comes through the ventilator window above, what it finds is a quality of space that Lower Parel never offered. The Lower Parel studio was built entirely from experimental, repurposed, and recycled materials. The centrepiece was a twelve-foot East Indian walnut tree trunk, pressed into service simultaneously as workbench, drafting table, and dining table. The constraints of that space were, in many ways, its subject. The new one inherits those constraints willingly, and relaxes a few of them. The walnut desk made the journey from Lower Parel. So did its steel trestle base, the wall-spanning red steel rack system, and the glazed timber library cabinet. These objects arrive not as nostalgic cargo but as load-bearing members of the new composition. The desk anchors the studio’s central volume; the racks hold the accumulated material of practice: models, artefacts, books, plants, found objects. One of three bicycles that serve as the principal means of navigating the city now hangs from the ceiling on a pulley system, its weight suspended in the twelve feet of overhead space the old mezzanine never afforded. The studio’s signature colour, a deep pomegranate red, runs through the space with more confidence here than before. It appears in the steel of the racks and the desk legs, in the grout lines of a tiled structural column, and in the painted geometry of the entrance shutter. The column tiles are leftover from a project the studio worked on in 2017, brought back into circulation here. That kind of material patience is characteristic: things are held onto, waited for, given the right context when it arrives. The entrance door repays close attention. An acrylic frame holds two panels of fluted glass, one on each face, and every component of its assembly is left visible through the glass. This feels appropriate for a practice that makes its living from how things are put together. Inside, a fluted glass partition behind the partners’ desk diffuses light while preserving a degree of privacy for the workspace. Above it, a semi-circular panel of dichroic film shifts between violet and blue depending on the hour and the angle of the evening light. On the marble below, a second semi-circle, painted, extends the geometry outward by two inches. Elsewhere, the studio opens into a pantry finished in Indian spotted grey marble, a quieter room set apart from the activity of the main floor. The studio’s logo carries a particular internal logic. A pomegranate, when cut open, reveals not the symmetry of a regular polygon but the dense, efficient packing of a voronoi arrangement, each seed occupying exactly the space it requires. The logo’s five deliberately uneven sides and six internal segments are drawn from that geometry, an emblem for a practice that holds optimisation and efficiency as values. Scaled to the entrance shutter, this abstraction stops being a mark of identity and becomes part of the architecture itself. Mahim is not a neighbourhood one immediately associates with the quieter registers of creative work. But the industrial estate sits at a remove from the road, and the studio’s days follow a different urban rhythm. Trains, metro, and buses are all within walking distance, the city reachable in every direction without a car. The roads outside carry almost no traffic. In the evenings, as the western light makes its way across the surface of the walnut desk, the studio finds a stillness that Lower Parel rarely offered. The move from Lower Parel to Mahim was, in the end, a question of ceiling height and silence. Both have changed what is possible, not necessarily in the work the studio makes for others, but in what the studio allows itself to make for itself. There is more room now. The experiments continue.

300 Words A rolling shutter painted in deep pomegranate red marks the entrance. The word “बंद”, closed in Marathi, is stenciled at its centre, playful in intent and precise in placement. Around it, the studio’s logo at architectural scale: a five-sided polygon drawn from the voronoi packing of a pomegranate, five uneven sides and six internal segments forming an emblem for a practice that holds efficiency and optimisation as values. Studio Pomegranate has occupied this 550 square foot space in the Owners Industrial Estate, Mahim, since July 2025. The move from a cramped 450 square foot mezzanine at Shah & Nahar Industrial Estate in Lower Parel was modest in footprint but significant in character. The ceiling rises to twelve feet, and in the evenings, western light enters through the ventilator window and settles across the twelve-foot East Indian walnut tree trunk at the heart of the room. The desk made the journey from Lower Parel. So did the red steel rack system, the steel trestle base, and the glazed timber library cabinet, arriving not as nostalgic cargo but as load-bearing members of the new composition. The pomegranate red runs through the space with new confidence: rack steel, desk legs, the grout of a tiled column finished with tiles carried over from a 2017 project. The entrance door is an acrylic frame holding two panels of fluted glass, all hardware deliberately visible through it. Inside, a fluted glass partition shields the partners’ desk; above it, a semi-circular dichroic film shifts between violet and blue with the evening light, answered by a painted semi-circle on the Indian spotted grey marble floor, two inches wider in radius. Mahim offers what Lower Parel could not: quiet streets, no traffic, and trains, metro, and buses all within walking distance. One of three bicycles used daily to navigate the city hangs from the ceiling on a pulley. There is more room now. The experiments continue.

200 Words A rolling shutter painted pomegranate red carries the studio’s logo at architectural scale, five uneven sides drawn from the voronoi packing of a pomegranate, an emblem of efficiency. In Marathi, “बंद” at its centre reads: closed. It is playful, and precisely placed. Studio Pomegranate has occupied this 550 square foot space in Mahim since July 2025, having moved from a cramped mezzanine in Lower Parel. The ceiling rises to twelve feet. In the evenings, western light falls through the ventilator window and across a twelve-foot East Indian walnut tree trunk. The desk, red steel racks, trestle base, and glazed library cabinet all made the journey from the previous studio. The pomegranate red runs through the space: rack steel, desk legs, the grout of a tiled column finished with tiles from a 2017 project. The entrance door holds two panels of fluted glass in an acrylic frame, all hardware deliberately visible. Inside, a semi-circular dichroic film shifts between violet and blue in the evening light; a painted semi-circle on the Indian spotted grey marble floor answers it, two inches wider. Mahim offers quiet streets, no traffic, and public transport close at hand. One of three daily-use bicycles hangs from the ceiling. There is more room now. The experiments continue.

100 Words A rolling shutter painted pomegranate red carries the studio’s logo at architectural scale, a five-sided polygon drawn from the voronoi packing of a pomegranate, an emblem of efficiency. “बंद” at its centre: closed, in Marathi. Playful, precisely placed. Studio Pomegranate’s 550 square foot space in Mahim, occupied since July 2025, inherits its Lower Parel origins: a twelve-foot East Indian walnut desk, red steel racks, a glazed library cabinet. Twelve-foot ceilings and western evening light are new. Inside, dichroic film and painted marble answer each other in semi-circles. Outside, quiet streets, public transport, one of three bicycles on a ceiling pulley. There is more room. The experiments continue.

50 Words Studio Pomegranate’s Mahim studio carries its Lower Parel origins forward: the East Indian walnut desk, red steel racks, glazed library cabinet. New are the twelve-foot ceiling, the quiet, and the western evening light. The entrance shutter reads “बंद” in Marathi: closed. But everything about how it is placed says otherwise.

Instagram Caption the shutter says बंद. it means closed. it also means: composed. mahim. 550 sq ft. twelve-foot ceilings. the walnut desk came from lower parel, so did the racks, the library, and the idea that a studio should show its workings. in the evenings, the light comes in from the west and settles. studio pomegranate.