What if a showroom wasn’t just a display space, but an experience that could transform with every interaction? The Evolve Artisanal Experience Centre in Worli, Mumbai brings this vision to life. Designers and co-founders of ACKM Studio, Aneri Mehta and Khushali Chawda, have reimagined the traditional showroom for Evolve Artisanal, as an immersive and adaptive environment, where interior decorative paints and panels are not just seen but experienced. Evolve Artisanal, a brand dedicated to artisanal surface finishes and decorative panels, sought more than a display room. What they received is a gallery of interaction, where design isn’t static—it moves. By blurring the lines between the product and user experience, they have created an architectural ecosystem where designers, clients, and material experts can engage with surfaces in entirely new ways—through movement, touch, and exploration.
Stepping into the Evolve Artisanal Experience Centre, one immediately senses the departure from conventional showroom structures. Light filters through seamlessly, casting shifting shadows on the soft, curving surfaces, subtly guiding visitors through the environment. “There is no prescribed pathway,” explains Aneri. “One might turn left, or wander right, or perhaps head straight to the centre, drawn by curiosity,” she adds. This fluid approach mirrors the very essence of the space, where the experience unfolds with the visitor's movements in a manner that fosters creativity, discussions and explorations.
The centre is divided into two zones. Hiding on one side are the back-of-house functions: pantry, workstation and conference, which ensure smooth day-to-day operations, while the other side opens into an expansive open-plan showroom, designed to exhibit the brand’s curated range of interior decorative paints and panels. Instead of relying on rigid, wall-mounted sliding panels, as is often the case in traditional showrooms, Evolve Artisanal’s Experience Centre’s showroom employs a custom-designed flexible, track-based panel system that allows for continuous reconfiguration. Panels slide and pivot effortlessly, enabling the space to transform in real time at a touch. These movable panels not only act as partitions, carving intimate discussion spaces when required, but also serve as a backdrop for conversation. The very flexible nature of the displays allow the visitors to manipulate materials firsthand, touch and feel them in varying contexts, rather than passively observing them. This choreography of panels offers an almost theatrical quality. Here, materials are performers—activated through touch, reshaped by interaction. “We didn’t want visitors to passively view surfaces,” says Chawda. “We wanted them to feel the grain, explore it under different light, and experience it as it would live in real spaces.”
The spatial experience is further elevated by a material palette that lends the space a monolithic and organic feel at the same time. Walls and ceiling adorned with a pastel pink concrete finish, contrasts the raw appeal of concrete furniture, while white-toned boucle soft furnishings introduce warmth and tactful contrast. There is restraint, but never austerity. Everything feels deliberate, but nothing feels fixed. Soft, sweeping curves transition the visitors from one space into another without them even noticing the difference. “It is designed to feel as if the space itself is gently guiding you ahead,” explains Khushali. This continuous flow not only makes the space feel intuitive but also allows visitors to navigate without effort, enhancing their overall connection with the environment. Saurabh Suryan's photography masterfully freezes the dancer's fluid motion, capturing the essence of artistic expression in a single, powerful frame.
More than just a showroom, the Evolve Artisanal Experience Centre is a hub for collaboration and creativity. “It is envisioned as a space where designers and creatives can ideate and experiment with materials in a hands-on manner,” remarks Aneri. "It’s also about sparking new ways of thinking, seeing and experiencing materials" adds Khushali. The space’s design fosters this very energy, through a long, communal table occupying the centrestage, where ideas are shared, explored, and developed together. And by enabling so, ACKM’s design for The Evolve Artisanal Experience Centre has redefined the very notion of a showroom as merely a display space.
At the heart of the showroom lies a long communal table—a sculptural yet inviting element designed to encourage dialogue, sketching, material mock-ups, or moments of pause. It is this table, and the conversations it nurtures, that anchors the project’s collaborative spirit. “This space isn’t just for display,” Mehta reflects. “It’s for ideation—for moments when the spark of a concept turns into a material decision.”
The Evolve Artisanal Experience Centre ultimately questions the role of a showroom in a designer’s life. Is it a gallery? A tool? A space for education or inspiration? With this project, ACKM Studio answers: it can be all of those things—and more. It can be a space that invites you to linger. To touch. To change your mind. And perhaps, to imagine differently.
