Where does a Blue Frog swim?

Answer: in Mumbai of course! Designed from architectural firm Serie, a new entertainment space that creates new dynamics in the staid world of night entertainment establishments.

One might never think India as a place to find pioneering interior design, but things are changing fast all around the world and the vast exotic country is no exception.

A large north lit industrial warehouse within the old mill district in Mumbai is converted into a complex of sound recording studios and an acoustic lounge. This lounge will consist of a restaurant, bar and a live stage. Beyond this amalgamation of provisions, Blue Frog seeks to stage an acoustic experience par excellence.


Based on this desire to have it all, the question is: how do you collapse a theatre, restaurant, bar and club into a warehouse whilst maintaining all the performance characteristics of each individual type?


The deep structure that was employed is of a cellular organization composed of circles of varying sizes in plan approximating a horse-shoe configuration.


The differential extrusions of these circles encapsulated at different levels as tiered cylindrical seating booths, allow the eye level of diners and standing patrons to be distributed across staggered levels that increase in height away from the stage.


These booths seat between 4-10 people and are arranged around an open centre that can either double up as a potential 360 degree stage or accommodate standing patrons, bringing them closer to the main stage to create an intimate viewing experience.


These mahogany panelled cylindrical booths maintain not only uninterrupted views to the stage, but also constant distance between diners irrespective of how crowded the lounge gets.


The undulating height of the seating booths is gently modulated by a glowing acrylic resin surface, ...


... which unifies the disparate types together and retains the presence of the architecture even in the midst of the spectacle of a state-of-the-art sound and light show at the Blue Frog.

Client: Blue Frog Media Pvt. Ltd
Area: 1000 sqm
Duration: October2006- November 2007

Design: Chris Lee / Kapil Gupta

Project Team: Tomas Ruis Osborne, Santosh Thorat, Purva Jamdade, Suril Patel, Dharmesh Thakker, Niti Gourisaria, Vrinda Seksaria and Udayan Mazumdar.
Acoustic Design: Munroe Acoustics (UK)
Lighting Design: Abhay Wadhwa Associates
Project Management: Masters Management Consultants
General Contractor: Zigma Enterprises

And a bit about Serie:

Formerly Chris Lee Architects and Contemporary Urban, Serie is an international practice based in London and Mumbai. Serie works in the diverse field of architecture, urbanism and design.

The practice is fascinated by the evolution and mutation of building types in today’s cities and the projection of these forms of intelligence into spatial solutions. Working typologically, or in our terms, thinking and exploring in series - harnessing the cumulative intelligence of building types - is key to the work of Serie.

The practice consistently pushes the boundaries of architectural and master planning projects worldwide and provides full architecture and master planning services for private and public sectors.

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