Studio Matter Refurbishes this Old Goan Home into a Campus that Focuses on Learning by Making

Thinkering by Studio Matter

Avik Sarkar, the founder of Thinkering goa, is an industrial designer. He envisaged a center where one can indulge in ‘learning by making’.

On the site - a 2000 square-meter piece of land in the village of Nachinola, Goa – existed a house that was in a state of disrepair. However, the plinth and walls of this old house were found to be in a good condition.

As the programme for the centre evolved over many conversations with the client, one realized that the formal structure, the existing sequence of spaces, and the spatial quality of the existing house presents a unique potential – a chance to complement and contrast the new intervention in a way that it neither caricaturizes the old and nor tries to deny its presence.

Nonetheless, the thick laterite walls and spatial quality of the old house had a character that prompted designers at Studio Matter to preserve them. As the design developed, a floating mezzanine was imagined – a light structure that maintains the found scale on the site and yet, adds to the area thereby addressing the commitments of the programme.

A light steel deck was designed in a way that it floats above the old, heavy walls – thereby contrasting the space. The quirks of the old house could coexist with the fine detailing of the new intervention. The colours of the building – light-grey, blue, yellow, and black were extrapolated in the space from the visual identity of the Thinkering brand.

By designing fenestrations in punched aluminium sheets, a perpetually breathing interior space was designed. The old windows were reconditioned and a new black kudappah floor was laid. A flexible plug-and-play space was thus formed and continues to lend itself to a plethora of activities that the centre hosts and curates – a place that one can tinker in!

Project: Thinkering

Location: Nachinola Village, Goa

Design House: Studio Matter

Design Team: Azna Parveen, Vignes Waral, Vaidik Hirani, Adhiraj Gorule, Taryesh Jangid, Ruturaj Parikh

Photography: Dinesh Mehta and Studio Matter

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