Prime Highlights
- Imsoi Studio’s reuse of a retired Gujarat factory as a two-for-one HQ and design showroom.
- Adjustive reconfiguration safeguards industrial heritage in response to exposed frames, skylights, and flexible zones.
Key Facts
- Location: Mana, Gujarat; reused building year unknown: original factory date not given.
- Design features: open-plan workspaces, showroom area, preserved roof trusses, and daylighting optimization.
Key Background
Iksoi Studio, a new Indian architecture firm, has taken on the strategic redevelopment of an abandoned factory in Mana, Gujarat, to utilize as its head office and showroom building. Strategy employed in the design methodically incorporates the factory’s industrial heritage, maintaining structural steel support systems and considerable concrete floors to retain original character. Designers chose to accentuate exposure rather than erasure by maintaining intact the existing roof trusses and adding skylights, thereby maximizing natural light and being faithful to the original building envelope.
Internally, the layout fuses functionality with experiential richness. The new studio features open-plan desks for collaborative work, meeting rooms, breakout areas, and a gallery-like showroom to present Iksoi’s materials, models, and installations. Rather than inserting rigid partitions, the design uses lightweight, demountable screens—permitting flexible spatial arrangements aligned with the firm’s dynamic workflow and exhibition needs. Material choices—raw concrete, plywood, and steel—reinforce the building’s industrial essence while delivering a refined, contemporary aesthetic.
Besides being aesthetically pleasing, the adaptive reuse ensures ecological and economic sustainability. Rather than demolition and new construction, Iksoi reused the old building, minimizing embodied carbon and construction waste. Recycling the factory also prompts local investment and cultural continuity—breathing life back into an underused asset as a thriving local hub.
Iksoi Studio’s renovation is one of numerous in the greater Indian architectural trend: returning industrial heritage to creative function. By maintaining and redirecting typical factory characteristics—open space, loft ceilings, and structural simplicity—the design operates past and present, showing that considerate interventions improve authenticity as well as usability. Mana renovation is subsequently an engaged working environment and also a discussion on sustainable heritage conservation in modern Indian architecture.
