Every project begins with three questions: who is this for, why are we doing it, and why does it matter. We answer them through fieldwork, benchmarking, prototyping and play.
Fieldwork, benchmarking and prototyping
A school on 0.3 acres
For the new Karachi Public School campus in Buffer Zone, we began not with a massing model but with a research brief: 30 classrooms and up to 1,000 students on a 12,870 sq ft plot.
The answer cannot be horizontal. Our study benchmarks Karachi's schools against the vertical campuses of Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia — asking how dense, land-poor schools deliver the same educational value as spacious ones, and how design earns the trust of parents at the gate.
30classrooms stacked vertically — basement, ground and six floors, with play delivered on rooftops and terraces.
≥3m²of open and covered play per student — achieved vertically where suburban norms demand ten times the land.
525sq ft target classroom for 30 students — a deliberate, measurable step above the crowded local norm.
100-point Parent-Attraction Design Scorecard: safety, light, play, first impressions — scored, weighted, benchmarked.
Material experiments
To make is to design. By using our hands, we understand the richness and possibilities of a material.
Our workshop researches locally available and waste-stream materials — shredded paper, sawdust, terrazzo offcuts, reclaimed wood — and refines them into lights, surfaces, knobs and furniture. Iteration is the method: a simple question becomes many prototypes before it becomes a product.
Use locally available materials; reuse waste as the core ingredient
Be honest to the process of making, and to the material itself
Incorporate indigenous technique and skillsets
Finish with finesse; create with love and attention to detail
Stay relevant to the environment and the context we live in