Aashish Karode, Architect- Urban Designer, and founding Principal, at Design Atelier makes the case for building smart and tall in Indian metropolises. Conserving land and natural environment alongwith providing density suitable for transit, make a model that is not at cross purposes with these aims.
Improved performance and sustainable practices have led the Chimes office building in Gurgaon to achieve IGBC’s LEED Gold (Core & Shell) certification.
New Delhi-based practice Design Atelier, has its roadmap charted out. The multi-disciplinary team aims to leave ‘good marks on earth’ and measures their work by the pleasure of the lives lived in their buildings. The firm employs a modern basic sensibility and local material, art and craft to foster a contemporary architecture rooted in local peculiarities.
For principal designers Aashish Karode and Sushil Karer, each new project is creating a signature design that enhances the identity of the place, differentiating it through a careful orchestration of architectural elements, to create a lasting memorable image. Sufi IT Park, Chandigarh is one of the key examples that conveys a timeless quality, says Remona Divekar in this interview.
The Centre is intended to significantly improve on Building performance through the sustainable and conservative use of energy and other resources.
Fairway Pub ‘s kaleidoscopic design is a confluence of energies. The space is full of decadent details, with Oaky timber beams covering the ceilings and touches of gold bronze trims, finished with Moonlight silver lights. A beautiful and sophisticated ambience is created with a running theme of grey stone, brown leathers and blue and white accents. The industrial and rustic patterned flooring adds a touch of the thrilling night with distressed grey industrial stone tiles create a noir flooring that resonates with the blue and reddish yellow ambient lights in the different parts of the restaurant.
The conceptual process for the design of the SUFI IT Park (StartUp Firms IT Incubator) aims to create an integrated unified composition through the articulation of the different form components, understanding the building as a volume and not as independent facades. That intention leads to a composition of added regular elements, represented by the cantilevered verandas, tied up together by the large parapet crowning the entire complex.
The Architecture of the Chimes Building, Gurgaon is about creating public spaces that are accessible and enable the experience of nature within the spaces of the building, symbolizing life inside the building. The design of the building addresses issues of sustainability, sociability, making room for nature, and program flexibility.
Located in the middle of a golf course virtually on a fairway, the Fairway Pub is designed to act as the heart of the Air force Sports Complex, Golf Course New Delhi. The member golfers use it in the day around the backdrop of Golf activities and as a cool rendezvous, amidst lively lights and colours in the evenings and nights. The architects surveyed a crumbling existing old structure and put in place an elaborate structural retrofit to save and put it to renewed use.
Improved performance and Sustainable practices in Architecture and Urban design have had a staggering impact on businesses as also on the entire economy. In fact a 60% of the power consumed by the economy is accounted for by the built environment. To be exemplary in Indian cities, architecture today must not only be graceful, but should also be seen to offer a hardworking, environmentally sensitive and sustainable energy design in keeping with the resource-scarce times we live in.
The design of the building emphasizes diversity of all kinds: juxtapositions of people, functions, built forms, spaces, and activities are just some of the fundamental elements that help encourage an inclusive and sustainable public sphere that thrives at all times of the day and night. The building is raised up from the ground on pilotis, allowing free-flowing open spaces under the building shaded from the harsh sun, with a variety of water pools and guided streams cooling the air, and plants growing within and around the building on the site to cool the ground.
Chimes Solar Facade: The design is equally about imaging a sensible notion of contemporariness, with formal and material choices that echo the historic form of massive Indian wall making that rejects heat and the high sun, but allows filtered natural light. The Facade design is guided by its visibility and response to the street corner, visibility from the surrounding spaces and the main roads and to the climatic considerations of the solar path, natural light penetration and breezes.
The architect visions a buildings design that is about creating public spaces that are accessible and enable the experience of nature within its spaces, symbolizing life inside the building. The design of the building addresses issues of sustainability, sociability, making room for nature, and program flexibility. The building mass is specially developed to demonstrate a novel solution for a multi-tenanted office building with floor plate size flexibility to create a mix of tenants from various service sectors and industries.
For an office building’s architecture today, to be exemplary in Indian cities, it must not only be graceful, but should also be seen to offer a hardworking, environmentally sensitive and sustainable energy design in keeping with the resource-scarce times we live in. When it is aligned to a powerful architectural idea and a business vision, it will at once make buildings economically viable, cut excesses and optimize costs. The architecture of sustainable buildings will shortly become the hardest working investment for owners, provide a great fit for the end users, while offering solutions that are conservative with the use of space, land, soil, energy and water. Of course, great design remains attractive to owners, buyers and tenants.
The Fairways Pubs primary approach in transitioning the cold raw, isolated structure into an artistic vibrant and colourful restaurant was to focus on re-infusion of a natural harmony with the new spaces created during construction. The industrial and rustic patterned flooring adds a touch of the thrilling night with distressed grey industrial stone tiles create a noir flooring that resonates with the blue and reddish yellow ambient lights in the different parts of the restaurant. Walls were broken and fully glazed panels were positioned to connect the encompassing greenery with the surrounding landscape.
The space at the Fairway Pub is full of decadent details, with Oaky timber beams covering the ceilings and touches of gold bronze trims, finished with Moonlight silver lights. The kaleidoscopic design is a confluence of energies. A beautiful and sophisticated ambience is created with a running theme of grey stone, brown leathers and blue and white accents. The industrial and rustic patterned flooring adds a touch of the thrilling night with distressed grey industrial stone tiles create a noir flooring that resonates with the blue and reddish yellow ambient lights in the different parts of the restaurant.
Located in the middle of a golf course, the Fairway Pub is designed for the member golfers use it in the day around and as a cool rendezvous in the backdrop of Golf activities and amidst lively lights and colours in the evenings and nights. The architects surveyed a crumbling existing old structure and put in place an elaborate structural retrofit to save and put it to renewed use. As the old building was disconnected from the expansive natural environment all around, it was decided to reconnect the building to the surroundings by removing unnecessary walls and open up the structure to the greens and fairways outdoors.
The Fairways Pubs primary approach in transitioning the cold raw, isolated structure into an artistic vibrant and colourful restaurant was to focus on re-infusion of a natural harmony with the new spaces created during construction. Walls were broken and fully glazed panels were positioned to connect the encompassing greenery with the surrounding landscape.
Fairway Pub- The space of the old building was remodeled and transitioned into an artistic vibrant and colourful restaurant. The primary approach was to focus on Atmospheric effects for Evening and Night-time use with- UV and coloured LED based high efficiency lighting and maximised natural glare free light through the glazing.The primary approach in transitioning the cold raw, isolated structure
The conceptual process for the design of the SUFI IT Park aimed to create an integrated unity through the articulation of the different form components, understanding the building as a volume and not as independent facades.
The Sufi building is set on a South-North orientation- The massive volumes of the cores anchor the whole and the various floor plates. The modern glass and stucco insulated façade is at the same time avant-garde in its expression and fits into the industrial surroundings. The design, which displays no symbolic elements on its monumental facades, stands in purposeful contrast to the local Indian traditions; preferring to integrate active and passive technology over decorative articulation.
SUFI IT Park aimed to create an integrated unity through the articulation of the different form solids Circular Triangular and Cubical to understand the building as a volume and not as independent facades. That intention leads to a composition of regular elements like the cantilevered verandas, tied together by the large parapet crowning the entire complex. Beyond this aesthetic function, this frame gives protection and privacy to the users from the other surrounding buildings and from the strength of the undesirable sun. The Sufi building is set on a South-North orientation- Massive volumes of the cores anchor the whole, and the varied floor plates.
The Plan of SUFI is derived by combining the Circular, Triangular and Cubical solids while making a playful attempt at the possibilities discovering unique geometries to join and shape the interior spaces. The idea is resolved to offer a form with a number of local variations and spatial formations that are new to experience. Additional Climatic features and technology interventions for building utilities design are used to achieve a sustainable building performance.
The Plan form at SUFI has evolved due to the unique requirements of a multi user/ single owner Incubator, with meeting and office areas stacked over each other and larger open-plan work floors more private work zones. Idealized spatial layouts that focus on optimizing the three zones of use – Offices, Meetings and Work halls. The intent is to open the Office areas to the contact with the street and the views of the surroundings and locating the rooms in the rear area, much quieter and facing the morning sun. The Meeting zones are in the middle, articulating the other two zones. The interior design does away with any historic references and stays away from “superficially” incorporating a traditional aesthetic, although the design incorporates porches and verandahs, which conventionally provide a sheltered, interstitial space between the pedestrian and the city.
Walking passionately for long hours to strike a hole, golfers of the Air Force Sports Complex in New Delhi have a special tee-off at their new watering hole called the Fairway Pub. The architects surveyed a crumbling existing old structure and put in place an elaborate structural retrofit to save and put it to renewed use. As the old building was disconnected from the expansive natural environment all around, it was decided to reconnect the building to the surroundings by removing unnecessary walls and open up the structure to the greens and fairways outdoors. The result is a cool rendezvous in the backdrop of Golf activities and amidst lively lights and colours in the evenings and nights.
A man of innumerable talents and varied interests, Aashish Karode, an architect and Masters in Urban Design from the University of Berkeley opens up about life as and beyond an architect & urban planner, in this interview.