What if architecture did not conclude with construction but only began when people arrived? This question anchors Unscripted, a pavilion designed by Abin Design Studio for ADFF:STIR Mumbai 2026, taking place from January 9 – 11, 2026, at the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) grounds in Mumbai, India. Commissioned as part of the Jaquar Pavilion Park and supported by JSW, the pavilion positions architecture not as a finished entity but as an open framework shaped by encounter, movement and time.

Mumbai offers fertile ground for such an exploration. It is a city of simultaneities, structured yet improvised, fragile yet enduring. Streets shift roles by the hour, thresholds become stages and density produces moments of unexpected intimacy; here, life unfolds through negotiation rather than resolution. The pavilion architecture, responding to curator Aric Chen’s theme for the Pavilion Park titled Mumbai Transcripts, draws from this condition, treating the city not only as context but as a system in which architecture is shaped through use, negotiation and time.

The pavilion design begins with a disciplined grid, precise and ordered, echoing architecture’s impulse to impose clarity on space and movement. This initial order is then deliberately unsettled: the grid fractures, rotates and displaces through a 45-degree shift, introducing diagonal movement into an otherwise orthogonal system. This disruption reflects a lived urban reality in which movement rarely follows straight lines, and life bends, collides and recalibrates itself constantly. Voids are cut into the structure as active thresholds rather than absences, allowing air, light and people to pass through. These openings are where the pavilion breathes, and encounters take place.

Conceptually, Unscripted is an extension of the festival's curatorial theme, which draws from Bernard Tschumi’s Manhattan Transcripts. Developed as a series of speculative drawings, Tschumi’s work challenged the idea of architecture as purely formal or functional construct, proposing instead that meaning emerges through the interaction of space, movement and event. The pavilion similarly resists a singular reading. From one angle, it appears ordered and legible; from another, it feels fragmented and unsettled. This oscillation mirrors the simultaneity of urban experience, where coherence and chaos coexist.

Human presence is central to the pavilion’s spatial layout. Its proportions are scaled to the human body, with circulation, seating and thresholds emerging from a modular system that balances structure with flexibility. Rather than dictating use, the pavilion anticipates it. Stairs double as places to gather, landings become moments of pause and the ground plane doubles as a key space for activations such as installations, discussions and assemblies. Within the spatial scheme, visitors are imagined not as mere observers but as participants whose movements and interactions complete the work.

Formally, the pavilion originates as a simple cube divided into multiple volumes. One volume is deliberately disengaged, introducing a controlled fracture that destabilises uniformity and opens space for negotiation. While externally the structure presents clarity and restraint, internally it unfolds as an experiential terrain shaped by diagonals, voids and shifting alignments. There is no front or back. The pavilion is porous on all sides and accessible from any direction, aligning with the Jaquar Pavilion Park’s ambition to foreground openness and public engagement.

Set for installation within the NCPA lawns, where Mumbai’s dense urban fabric meets the openness of the sea, Unscripted occupies a charged threshold that responds by offering both compression and release, reflecting the city’s capacity to hold contradiction while remaining resilient.

“Mumbai reminds us that stories rarely end; they keep unfolding. That’s what we wanted here, a pavilion that stays open, active and alive. For this pavilion, we began with a question: what if architecture is not a fixed entity but an open script shared by the moment and encounter,” Abin Chaudhuri, founder of Abin Design Studio, tells STIR. “Mumbai has always fascinated me. It holds opposites; you see how the city is constantly renegotiated by the people who look through it. The pavilion is called Unscripted; as visitors walk through it, their pauses and paths inscribe their space. They complete the walk.”

The 2026 edition of the Pavilion Park at ADFF:STIR Mumbai 2026 is presented by Jaquar.

Unscripted by Abin Design Studio is supported by JSW.

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