The Multipliers

Howard Roark is dead and “prime movers” are no longer the super heroes in design. The individual is no longer the hero. Collaborations have become the alchemical art that transforms conflict into a common vision.

For Sabyasachi Paldas and Amit Krishn Gulati — both National Institute of Design graduates specialising in industrial design — working together was an obvious choice. More than 17 years later, they have a bouquet of projects in multiple domains: built spaces, product innovations, branding and master planning.

Collaborations, they say, act as vehicles of trust, where they mutually rely on the other’s skills. “Amit has the flair for drawing and sketching,” says Paldas. Gulati completes his sentence, “while Paldas is the contemplative, logical mind.” Working as co-founders of Incubis, they knew from the beginning that each could fill in for the other. Their willingness to take on risks and ask inane questions has won them clients. One was Numaligarh Refinery Limited, a petrochemicals company that distributed fuels through Bharat Petroleum pumps. “The brief was simple: make us a new petrol pump. But during our interactions, we began asking them the craziest of questions, like, ‘Why do attendants have to manually signal to a car every time they drive in, why not have lights to show which bay is available?’ What may have been micro questions became an engineering feat for the client, and today, their ‘energy stations’ in Kaziranga, Assam and elsewhere

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