BandukSmith Studio

BandukSmith Studio is an award winning architecture, urban design, and research practice founded in 2011 by Sachin Bandukwala and Melissa Smith, based in Ahmedabad, India. Our work engages processes of making through research on unique construction methods, both institutionalized and inventive, and built projects that explore the boundaries of material and craft in the context of contemporary Indian construction. We take on projects at any scale, and the practice shifts from furniture and interior, to architecture and the design public space. We believe that exploring the intricacies of the detail and strategizing the impact of design in urbanism are two modes of working that operate in tandem, and by engaging each project through both these lenses, we are able to interrogate the relationship between person and city. The office combines a materially sensitive approach to design with respect for the context into which each project is placed. Each celebrates its context through a considered relationship with the physical and social condition of its surroundings. Design is explored as a series of systems; of pieces working together whose addition and combination adds to a whole that works in conjunction with human created urban and rural networks, and with the natural systems that grow, weather and decay.