We F cked up
What follows is a brief meditation on the grammar of our Fuck-ups. We’re sorry.
What do Fuck-ups do?
They Grow.
Why do we do what we do?
We Manifest Culture. We are Designers Architects Artists Musicians Curators Facilitators Patrons Clients
On our fragile shoulders lies the Responsibility of Pushing Culture
Is it Contextual ? Is it Relevant ? Is it Homegrown ? Is it Inspiring ? Is it creating more Junk ? Is it Necessary ? Is it Inclusive ? Is it Sustainable ? Is it Original ?
The Enemy is Laziness of Thought.
Dividing Culture Progressive vs Regressive
#1 The Hollowness of Trends
Early in 2012, Cafe Zoe opened its doors to Mumbai. The vibe was referred to as “Happy and Hippy”. We tried to bring back the experience of the beautiful shadowless daywashed lightscape that the city’s working populace enjoyed before we got shuttered into tiny fluorescent tube-lit cubicles. Cafe Zoe was meant to show the city what it was like to work in the mills, offering a tiny glimpse into the bare bones of what made the city the Industrial powerhouse it once was. The space was deliberately kept bare.
We inadvertently created a Shabby-chic Beast. The Mill became a ‘treatment’ that could then find application without context across tiny stores in malls and commercial complexes. No style was equated with Global style. The stripped down bare cafe became a symbol of a low fit-out budget. We’d like to apologise. It’s not what we intended.
“I really love the exposed brick work. I want to do that on my Bedroom wall�
We’re Sorry.
Our Apology
In 2015, we were given another site, across the street in an uninspiring disused parking lot in the Kamla mill compound. This time we decided to occupy the site with an idea. What are the stories that buildings would whisper to us if they were given that power? What’s the beauty of a ruin ? How can we fill in the blanks in our head when we see incomplete structures ? We intended the Bombay Canteen to be our response to all the exposed brick genericness around. We wanted it to be our ode to the city.
Concept layout : The Bombay Canteen 2015
Concept layout : The Bombay Canteen 2015
“They bring Bombay back on several levels. We are a confusing city: our modern progressive merges with colonial past, and our casual chic in ways that Delhiites choke on. The team achieves this with the part Irani, part Parsi stained glass and wood interiors that stir memories of being able to walk into a neighbourhood corner tea store with a few Rupees to order bun maska and chai or an individually wrapped strawberry wafer in your shorts and chappals.” “Almost like an art installation, the Malad-stone recreates an old Bombay look, which is mish-mashed to a purpose: it’s hit so many chords by the time you’ve sat down, you want to hug the waiter and ask him to summon your now deceased uncle from the gymkhana. It's the call of a city we, to appropriate Faiz Ahmed Faiz, who have reached the age when one visits the heart only as a courtesy, fear we will forget all too soon.”
“More than anything, that is the lingering sense that The Bombay Canteen leaves you with: That here are a bunch of people who are thinking about their food, their city, what they stand for and where they want to go. That who we are and what we mean, that everyone who remembers it is holding on to for dear life. I still think my son said it best; "it's food that switches something on in you". That, which it switches on, my son, that's Bombay.�
Gayatri Jayaraman, The Daily O, 03.03.2015
The Bombay Canteen 2015
#2 All those Bells and Whistles
#CONNECT. Our fit-out for the first Social was hinged around the idea of meeting new people. Each design decision hinged around lifting filters from meeting people. We heavily incentivised seating around the massive central communal table by making the rest of the space borderline uncomfortable, and locating the most comfortable seats around it. We designed the entire layout and cutout huge parts of the slab to encourage line-of-sight. The anti-design vibe was meant to remove inhibitions from entry and protocol on behaviour, in line with the Rebellion of it’s spirit.
The Church Street Social
The Church Street Social
Social experimented with a new way of doing things, as an extension of the anti-design idea. Humour was key. The idea of repurposing played out in the Menu in surprising ways. Bilingual humour seemed a great way to engage a new kind of marginalised user, and keep it basic and fun. What started as a few good ideas rapidly degraded into a host of me-too imitations, with gimmickry taking centre-stage. It’s the dierence between a well told joke, and the ones that die painful deaths.
The launch of Social also coincided with the rise of the Zomatofied “foodie”. We were suddenly surrounded by Amuse Bouches and Amused Douches. When food is consumed visually as well as orally, the onus shifts from health, nutrition, flavour and balance to gimmickry, smoke and mirrors in skull-shaped glasses. The social media powered consumption resulted in a slew of copycats, pushing the boundaries of sanity. We saw this menu open on the tables of many meetings, asking us how they could be more ‘quirky.’
We’re Sorry.
“Let’s try and find something Quirky to put this into”
Our Apology
Our apology came in form of a not-for-profit restaurant. Homegrown and home-run, The Gypsy Kitchen stood at the other end of the spectrum. The Gypsy Kitchen, co-curated by Restaurateur Riyaaz Amlani, Chef Gresham Fernandes and The Busride Design Studio encouraged talented housewives and house-help to cook fantastic signature meals, and curated a table of 10-12 participants to pay for it, channeling all of the proceeds back to the cook. Food was basic, wholesome, and delicious, served homestyle, with love.
The Gypsy Kitchen
The Gypsy Kitchen
The Gypsy Kitchen
The One with Mary. This was a special one. We helped the amazing cook Mary to raise money for her Mother’s medical expenses by cooking for table of 12, a fantastic Goan meal from her memories of Mapusa. The Restaurant can be a stage for good.
#3 Creating Future spam
Pic : Brendon Fernandes
When you’ve been in love with a view all your life. When we were given this incredible site opposite the epic Carter Road sunset, we decided we had to pay homage to the sunset. We decided to create an optical fun-house, the curate, reflect, magnify and distort this magical scene to create all of the decor. At MasalaBar we decided to play with Nature’s great show.
MasalaBar
MasalaBar
An extension of the optic fun-house idea came in form the idea of lighting the space internally purely through candles. We wanted to use the large reflective surfaces to our advantage, by creating a moody, romantic space. The predicable social media response came in form a huge number of images, shifting focus on the photogenic nature of candle-light, and drawing large droves of attention away from the view we intended to highlight. We apologise.
We’re Sorry.
“Lets create a Selfie corner”
Our Apology
The Smokehouse Deli project creates layered narratives, invisible at first glance. Each outlet is a tiny, whimsical city-museum. The visceral reaction against the mono-directional consumption of space resulted in the idea behind the Smoke House Delis, a hand-illustrated, painstakingly illustrated spatial idea that reserved it’s stories for deeper inspection. The pretty wallpaper conceals stranger, darker ideas, eccentric city stories, and the hope is to make guests fall back in love with their cities.
Our hand-illustrated ode to the city allowed for a secondary idea to populate the space, one dierent from the obvious first impression. We wanted each Smokehouse Deli to be a tiny portal into the rich history of it’s surroundings. The amazing events and happenings that surround us, and make you smile when you learn of it.
Sometimes it pays back.
We fucked up. We’re Sorry. Now what?
We’re now using our own practice as an Apology, in some of our new inquiries.
Like most problems in design and architecture, [planning for an event] is a problem in true speculation. You must relive the act before and evaluate many possible courses of action. Charles and Ray Eames, The India Report 1953
The Wave energy harvesting Tetrapods that use tidal variations to power parts of the Marine drive The Bombay Boomtown Project, 2035
The guerrilla installation art group Tree Surgeons, and their solar prosthetic on a dead tree. The Bombay Boomtown Project, 2035
Repurposed ad-boards used as urban vertical parks The Bombay Boomtown Project, 2035
Malabar Hill 2035, with the dwarfed Antilla building and their society sunlight harvesting project The Bombay Boomtown Project, 2035
Where does that leave us ?
We promise to fight laziness of thought
We promise to create projects, not wait for them.
We promise to self-edit the vast amounts of junk we’re capable of creating.
We promise to collaborate. We will create meaningful collisions.
Sorry.