Left Of Centre

- Alifiya Mehamdabadwala

When Anirudh Pandita and Ashwin Suresh, the co-founders of digital media start-up Pocket Aces that focuses on producing original youth-oriented content, were looking to design their new office at Parel in Mumbai, they zeroed in on the young, talented architects Ipsit Patel and Rika Chaudhry of Patch Design Studio, having liked their work on a previous office project.

With an innovative and youthful team in tow, Anirudh and Ashwin were on the lookout for a space that served as a creative outlet. From the outset, one thing was clear for these young entrepreneurs: they wanted an unconventional office that encouraged open discussions, collaboration and ideation and didn’t tug too hard on their purse strings. “Since most of the office’s population would be on the go, the idea of a fixed workstation didn't apply here,” explains Rika. She and Ipsit had a 1,500-square-foot blank canvas to play with, which was to accommodate large informal workspaces, multiple break out areas, storage, a screening room, an editing room, two cabins and a conference room.“We were asked to provide for a variety of fun informal workspaces that were reminiscent of working in a cafe, while the storage requirement was slightly more than that of a usual office space,” informs Ispit.