Mumbai: The way Ayaz Basrai tells it, the brief for the first milestone project for his design studio, The Busride, involved restaurateur Riyaaz Amlani playing a selection of Acid Jazz tracks to explain just what he wanted the new Smoke House Grill in Delhi to look like. That musical discussion led to the rather distinctive interiors of the Smoke House Grill. It also got Ayaz and his architect brother (and fellow Busride-r) Zameer interested in the hospitality scene, a space they now “enjoy immensely”, says Ayaz.
And indeed, while The Busride has dabbled in film production design, installation art, and a whole host of other design projects, it is in the hospitality sector that they’ve had some of their best-known projects. This includes converting an old mill in Mumbai into the chic Café Zoe; the Smoke House Deli outposts in Delhi, Chandigarh, Bengaluru and Mumbai, known for their meticulously hand-drawn interiors; the Church Street Social in Bengaluru and the Jam Jar Diner in Mumbai —a little cottage by the sea that is now a quaint but hip diner.
“We’ve always looked at projects as a great way of collaborating with and learning from cool people,” says Ayaz, of The Busride’s varied repertoire. “Strangely enough, projects aren’t selected based on budget, scale or type of work. It’s always greatly interconnected with the people behind them. So it’s been a blast working on the new instalments of the BlueFrogs, with a team dedicated to pushing a progressive music scene. We work closely with Riyaaz’s team on the Smoke House Delis, which aim to be tiny curated museums of city-pride wherever they go. The people behind the project define how the project turns out, hence it’s impossible to work from a purely aesthetic viewpoint.”
One of the things that’s very evident about The Busride’s work is that there is no “signature” style or look — instead there’s an element of global cool that runs through all of the projects. From the futuristic to warehouse chic, from quirky and quaint to restrained elegance, you’ll find all of these styles being expressed in their work. “It’s something we’re really conscious about. If we see a particular material or technique cropping up too often we’ll earmark it as one of those no-no materials, and actively look for new substitutes! I feel the ‘signature look’ is a short cut — the result of lazy thinking,”Ayaz says.
No Busride project is started with a “look” or “style” consciously planned — it emerges only once an interesting inquiry has been articulated. As an example, Ayaz talks about the design for The Daily (a stylish bar in Bandra), which incorporates the display of feel-good news snippets in its décor: the thought was of how, amid the grind of city life, there’s always that one snippet of news that makes us smile — be it Tendulkar hitting a century, or a little girl finding her kitten — and reasserts our faith in humanity. The Daily’s design was dedicated to that snippet.
“I think places tend to resonate more when they haven’t been purely aesthetically driven, or been created using reference images and Google searches. If there’s a deeper thought behind the way places look, they work better. I have massive faith in the new generation of guests using these spaces, they have this beautiful sensibility that reads between the lines. If we’re able to create spaces that allow them the intellectual depth of engagement, we’ll hopefully stay more relevant,” Ayaz explains.
The Busride’s work is considered part of a new design movement here, and you’ll sense this as a visitor to one of their spaces — an approach and an aesthetic that wasn’t explored before, but one that people want to experience a lot more of, now that they’ve had a taste of it. Ayaz, an NID Ahmedabad alumnus who worked with a brand consultancy in Dubai before returning home to set up The Busride with his brother seven years ago, says he sees their practice as “riding a wave others have enabled”. “Maybe it’s happening slowly in design and architecture, but in the supporting cultural-exporting industries, like music, art and food, the ‘Modern Indian’ has been beautifully articulated… For instance, it’s really inspiring to be part of the cultural flowering that’s taking place in our indie music scene. Because there’s such a profusion of music, there is a need for venues. We recently completed work on the BlueFrog in Pune, a variant of the iconic Bombay venue, and it’s just this massive wave of music that venues of that kind are riding. It’s amazing to be part of this landscape, and very humbling.”
