BetweenSpaces ® is an architecture and interior design firm founded in 2010. We operate from our own studio in Bangalore, which has won us the IA&B Young Designers Award 2016 in the Architecture category, NDTV Design and Architecture Awards 2015 for office interior category and IIID Anchor Awards 2015 for small office category.
We have realized that our work gets hugely influenced by our own personality and so in a way our work is an expression of our beliefs.
The practice concerns itself with contextually relevant design, understand the local condition, the traditional method of construction and design a building which celebrates the spirit of the place and time with a contemporary undertone. As much as the practice is concerned about innovation, it gives equal importance to specificity of the projects. The more specific we make a building, the more they communicate about the place, people and the culture.
Physical, economic, social and cultural contexts define the generative tools for design that give clues to transform an ordinary space into a distinctive experience.
In all our works, irrespective of the size and nature, we endeavor to achieve a balance between ever changing, pluralistic milieu and the rich traditions we are rooted to.
We love complex spaces. We enjoy working with natural materials but most importantly we like to keep it simple.
Design is a nonlinear process. We go back and forth on our ideas. We keep questioning our intent until we strip down our own notion of built spaces to its bare bones, which could have been influenced by an idea or a project we might have come across. It’s important to shed all our preconceived notion and keep removing inessentials till we are left with something very fundamental.
During this process, we reach moments of frustration and complete emptiness and then we revisit our initial sketches to look for ques. We sketch over them again and again till we find that one line that would make all the difference. As much as it is to do with common sense or our repository of construction knowledge, it is really our intuition that tells us when we are ready to move to the next stage or next part of the space. We look at smallest part of the building that forms the whole and then the whole that comes out of the parts and if either of it doesn’t make sense, or compliments each other then we start all over again. This entire process takes place through sketches, discussion, 3d views and physical models. Sometimes this bruises our ego but we are learning to let go of it and start working all over again to get a solution that really makes sense.
We are a small practice. We have our own personalities, have our own values in life and at the same time have many differences. But when it comes to work we discuss, debate, question every aspect of our project. We continuously question each other’s ideas and understanding of a project and in that process we start eliminating the inessentials. This of course is not an easy task because we need to go beyond our ego, take the criticism with an open heart and look at our drawings with fresh perspective. This really has helped us in seeing the unexplored venues and often we get a beautiful solution that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible. In our opinion that’s really being professional, where we keep aside our differences, have our own space, have the freedom of expression and yet design something which end of the day turns out to be the most obvious solution.
When we started BetweenSpaces, we had no work and in the initial few years of our practice, there were times when we weren’t too busy as well. But we always made sure to come to office regularly, on time, even if there wasn’t much to do. We believe that certain amount of discipline is very important for our own individual growth. As much as it is important to give sufficient time to work, it is equally important to make time for your personal life.
We are particular about drawings, layer management in CAD, organization of project folders in the computer and maintain project files. And in the long run this really helps in running the work place smoothly.
What’s important is, to be honest with whatever we do in order to maintain the sanctity of a practice’s ethos and beliefs. If a work place really nurtures you, it’s equally important to respect the office resources in return. We give space to not just architects but students who join us for internship and encourage them to contribute in the development of a project.
We see technology merely as a medium to shape up an idea. We don’t use technology as an idea. The specificity of a project is more important to us and technology can aid us to achieve that. Complex software and technology is making it much easier and faster to build complex forms and shapes. But as a practice, we are more keen to know about how things are made with hand and in response to what is it built for, where and how it is built.
We are more interested in simple spaces with rich experiential quality and like Peter Zumthor says in his book Thinking Architecture “ …. in basic things architecture is made of – material, structure, construction, bearing and being borne, earth and sky and spaces that are really allowed to be spaces…..” We are not averse to technology but we would like to use it to design buildings that are subservient to the spaces it contains, the materials it’s made of. IIM Bangalore is one such example.
It always intrigued us as to what is it in the historical buildings which captivates us with its sheer magnificence and we realized, that it was the workmanship , the work of hand that made them so beautiful and not the intricate carvings and moldings.
The restaurant project (Jonathan’s Kitchen and Komatose) and our own office building have really taught us to appreciate the materials in its truest form. We enjoy the patina of rust on the metal, the dark purplish patina on hot rolled sheet, the texture of mortar, stone and bricks. The work of hand is what brings richness and evokes life into the materials. Materials like brick, stone, sheet metal, etc. as such are lifeless but it is the craftsman who evokes life and character into it and that is why the historical buildings age so gracefully.
Although we are very finicky about the drawing quality and we believe in having maximum resolution for a detail before we hit the site yet we prefer to spend more time on site. In most of our projects, the contractors could barely read the drawings so we tend to work with them very closely and many a times details get resolved while discussing with the contractor at site. In fact the construction process has always been more satisfactory for us then the final product because until then the project sort of belongs to us. Once the participation ends, we are merely an observer.
Our work comes from the voice of many and not just the two of us. We strongly believe that collaboration can bring different hues to projects. It opens up unexplored venues. However it is important to share similar ethos and beliefs. A project should be able to make some room for contradictions as well. These imperfections and contradictions make a project rich.
We depend a lot on the images from our past, from our childhood, from our general day to day life as to how we use spaces and what makes certain things special. We let these images and moods guide us to explore materials and spaces and eventually give us a complete image of the building. So our endeavor is to understand the local condition, the traditional method of construction and design a building which celebrates the spirit of the place and time with a contemporary undertone. There is no single formula that can be applied globally. Architecture has to be site specific and contextually relevant.
It all starts with us and what we are seeking. When we speak about our own personal life, our own aspirations, we tend to question every moment of our life and we figured out that we are most satisfied when we keep things simple.
That just allows us to focus on more important things, allows us to enjoy small things, build a memory that would last long and enrich our lives. We enjoy going back to Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore every opportunity we get. That’s one building which can teach us more about life, about happiness, about melancholy, about light and shadow, about being sensuous and at the same time being masculine, about being timeless and how to age gracefully.
Works of Peter Zumthor, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, Louis I Kahn and Le Corbusier have always been a great inspiration for us.