Armaan Bansal Talks Recontextualising Indian Aesthetics, Design As Sensation, & More
What does it mean to design not just for the eye, but a deeper sense of perception that's rooted in memory and belonging? For architect and designer Armaan Bansal, design isn’t limited to aesthetics or function — it’s a way of translating atmospheres into form. Across continents, collaborators, and materials, Bansal’s studio practice functions like an assimilation and juxtaposition of of ideas, textures, and emotions.
Whether it’s the slow tactility of traditional craft, the emotional density of architectural detail, or the charge of a shared room, what matters most in his work is not the object itself but the responses and relationships it nurtures. Form and feeling are never far apart in his world. His design language is better understood as a way of cultural listening; an attunement to both the silences and signals that shape how we inhabit space today.
In this conversation with Homegrown, Armaan sheds light on the personal, philosophical, and playful layers behind his practice — and the evolving grammar of design he's helping write.
You describe your work as a search for a ‘contemporary Indian sensibility.’ Growing up, were there specific places, textures, or places and moments that first shaped your aesthetic eye and eventually nudged you toward design?
Here are four points | memories that come to mind. These are moments from memories, so I thought it’s fair that I give points.
Chandigarh
Its simple, brutal geometries, raw concrete, and how modernity was imagined. Also, it fucked with everyone’s idea of beauty at the time, and I think that’s beautiful.
Punjab
The browns and yellows of the Punjab fields. Dry earth and ripe grain had a kind of muted warmth that has stayed with me
Ornaments and symbols
The red of the tilak pressed on a steel thali; the orange of marigolds strung. They're emotional colours that made space feel charged and meaningful.
The English Countryside
The greenish brown patina at the bottom of ponds in the English countryside and the drama of white flowers floating above.
It’s not one image or moment, but a lifelong gathering of atmospheres. All of them have nudged me toward building spaces and objects that feel held, culturally rooted, and yet open to reinterpretation.
In 'Between Two Minds', there's a palpable tension and tenderness between the soft cotton forms and the heavy patinated metal, almost like two sensibilities in negotiation. Was this duality a metaphor for your own experience moving between India and London, or does it reflect a larger cultural condition you’re responding to?
On the nail. Literally. Being the first tangible work that I put out via anda_ba, I wanted it to be an intentional reflection/metaphor on my own duality. Moving between India and London, between material abundance and restraint, softness and rigidity, chaos and control.
I wanted to relay rwo temperaments trying to coexist, each holding its ground — but also make it look sexy.
I also think this tension mirrors a larger cultural moment. Many of us are navigating hybrid identities, crossing geographies, mediums, and traditions. This work tries to hold that complexity without resolving it — enjoying the contrast. Like a well-produced track that respects its original sample and elevates it.
In 'Family Business', your installation for the V&A, intimacy is designed into the architecture of the seating itself — folded, grounded, and communal. What does ‘intimacy’ mean to you as a designer working across continents, and how do you see space as a tool for creating emotional and cultural connection.
I think intimacy has to do a lot with trust and believing. Even when I think of a personal relationship, I always prefer to start as friends; to get the truest and deepest understanding of a person. To have that, you need to be in the same space, feel, see, touch, smell, and taste.
As a designer working across continents, intimacy is the feeling of familiarity in unfamiliar places, the quiet charge of being together, and the subtle gestures that turn a structure into a shared experience. The seating was folded and grounded to slow people down, bring bodies closer, and invite pause, conversation, or even get smashed and dance on the couches — they did that at the Stone Island x Friendly Pressure space at Milan Design Week, until Shivas cussed all out.
Culturally, space holds memory. It carries rituals, postures, and shared behaviours — like the verandahs. Designing space becomes a way of composing intimate relationships.
Collaboration is central to anda_ba whether with craftsmen, photographers, or artists like Navinder Nangla and Daniel Swarilov. How do you approach authorship within such a porous, multidisciplinary practice? What does ‘ownership’ look like in the ecosystems you build?
Think of it like a recipe. There are so many characters. So many ingredients — some form the base, some the garnish, and some the dish gets named after. Each play a role as important, because even one missing fucks up the entire dish — and then its just an average recipe. Now, think about the first bite that is taken of the dish. The anda_ba collaborative model regards ownership as that moment.
A space where multiple voices can breathe together. We are not executing an idea, we are shaping it. Family Business.
This ecosystem is built on trust, slowness, and dialogue. That’s intentional, because anda_ba is less interested in finished products and more in live processes. We have fun just being with each other, anda_ba is actually a big excuse for me to hang out with fun friends.
House59, the concrete house you’re building in India, feels like both a home and a living archive of anda_ba’s ideas. What kind of future do you imagine this space holding, not just architecturally, but as a site for process, reflection, and cultural production?
Architecturally, house_59 is concrete, cold and grounded, ageing gracefully with time and weather. Beneath that solidity, the house is designed to be fluid. Each wall holds space for a voice — friends | collaborators | artists - invited to leave behind a trace. It’s a kind of a living archive, yes, but also a generous one that's constantly evolving.
One of the decisions I’m gassed about was convincing the clients to convert the front guest living room into a rotating guest artist gallery. Who needs to host more cousins? It opens the home up to the creative community; to the bigger family. The space is now porous - like its courtyards.
You're coming to India soon for a tour — can you share what this journey entails? Beyond showcasing work, what kinds of conversations or interventions are you hoping to ignite in the Indian design landscape right now? And what can we expect from anda_ba?
This is a simple one, to be honest. I tend not to hide or strategize, it takes too much energy. I have a few photoshoots with the new furniture collections planned. We’re thinking rock, stone, and quarry. I need to look after the interior details of house_59. There’s a lot of internal uniform being made. I mostly plan to see family. I think they're curious about what I'm doing but unsure what it actually is. Me too. I also miss my food.
In terms of community, I want to talk to as many people as possible. Not with any agendas in mind, but to share, understand and learn. It will also be nice to convince a lot of the bigger industries with production capabilities that more exciting business models with younger designers and cultural figures work.
anda_ba in the next few months is always building. You will see a lot of projects we’ve already been working on come to light. Space | Food | Stone | Silver
In your conversation with Kunal Singh Chhabra, you mentioned that 'nothing is really new anymore'; that everything that needed to be born already exists, and the real creative act now lies in recontextualising what’s already around us. As you return to India, what’s something within the Indian visual or material landscape that you feel is ripe for recontextualization — something that, if seen through a new lens, could create a striking contrast or spark fresh conversations within the design world here?
Nothing entirely new can be created — there will always be traces of past forms, design, and language. Which is okay. It's not about claiming a design, but more about understanding your intention or reason behind borrowing it. Shit, I sound like the Oracle.
One thread I feel deeply drawn to recontextualise is the Ghazal, not just as a musical or literary form, but as an atmosphere. Slow, deliberate, layered - they carry silences and longing. I see an opportunity to translate that sensibility with physical form, particularly through traditional Punjabi furniture.
Think of the charpai or the moorha — not as artefacts, but as instruments of rhythm and pause. Reimagined with contemporary spatial systems and materials. Pairing them with sonic interventions or fragments of ghazals could create spaces that feel both intimate and open, anchored in memory but speaking to the now.
To me, this isn’t about revival. It’s about modulation. Taking the spatial slowness of the ghazal and the tactile wisdom of our furniture, and composing them together in new arrangements that invite reflection, care, and presence. It’s a way of saying — we already have the tools to make spaces feel more human. We just need to tune them differently.
Follow Armaan here.
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