This Mumbai apartment feels pixelated, like walking into a retro video game 

This is the latest instalment of The Inside Story, Wallpaper’s series spotlighting intriguing, innovative and industry-leading interior design.

Soaring high above Mumbai’s Versova neighbourhood is a rather special apartment. Although the home is dubbed ‘Gingham Dreams’ by design firm MuseLAB – referencing the chequered pattern – we think that the distinctive gridded decoration of this 3,000 sq ft space feels more like pixels, and that stepping inside is a bit like inhabiting a 1990s arcade game.

Tour a Mumbai apartment with geometric charm

Rigid geometry recurs throughout the space – departing from the organic shapes and fluid lines of contemporary interiors and favouring instead a Tokyo-inspired lattice. The square motif manifests in inventive ways – stretching boldly from floor to ceiling in some places, and appearing fleetingly in others. The grid is ever-present but never monotonous; its form, often associated with confinement and restraint, becomes a symbol of openness and creativity.

A luminous colour palette, veering between neutrals and pastels, amplifies this. Cloudy marbles in coral, pale blue, beige and Lake Placid green flow across floors and surfaces in intricate inlay patterns. Bathed in eastern light from its 25th-floor vantage point overlooking the Arabian Sea, the kitchen shimmers in quartzite and Corian, its marble floors unfolding like a woven tapestry. Occasionally, fluid, amoeba-like shapes interrupt the grid, and stone wainscoting adorned with Sycaro sculptures adds to the home’s crafted narrative.

At the heart of the apartment, a rectilinear living area can host up to a dozen guests. Stone panels and tabletops reminiscent of board games animate the space, while the ceiling and floor motifs mirror one another. In the dining area, a coral table with cruciform legs and a monolithic bench are joined by an installation by Hands and Minds. The kitchen’s veined island extends into a chequered fascia, its backsplash stamped by delicate inlaid grids.

The study and guest bedroom are spaces of calm, with powder-blue ceilings, wood-clad walls and Japanese Shoji screen-inspired lattices. A sculpted owl by Sycaro presides over the library, while terrazzo floors lead out to a terrace populated by granite furniture and a cabana-style daybed – perfect for city-gazing at dusk.

Each bedroom interprets the reticulated design language through a unique mood: the primary suite glows with warm umber tones and a scalloped headboard; the children’s room bursts with apple-green vitality; and the parents’ suite soothes in sepia.

By reimagining precision as warm and playful, MuseLAB transforms an architectural constraint into a poetic framework, creating a space that feels at once futuristic and strangely nostalgic.