Saturday, July 15, 2006
IPL, an oasis in the architectural desert
Thanks to the frantic pace of construction in Hyderabad, architecture and aesthetics have usually been given the go-by. There seems to be an unseemly hurry to put up massive and ugly structures, which are used to house mostly technology companies looking for office space. There is hardly any office, or residential, block for that matter, which merit a second look. Most of them will never make the cut for an architectural award.
The exceptions appear to be the Indian School of Business, and the Infosys’ campus in Gachibowli. The design of the Microsoft campus, adjacent to ISB, could have been imported, blueprint by blueprint, from the software giant’s global headquarters in Redmond in Washington State in the U.S. Even the parking lots, a Microsoft executive once told me proudly, are similar to those in Redmond. Ditto for Dell, Oracle and IBM.
In such a bland landscape, dominated by assembly-line construction, the headquarters of Indu Projects Ltd., a four-year-old infrastructure company, comes across as a whiff of fresh air. The surprising thing about IPL’s office is that from the outside it looks like a large industrial shed, where, inside, workers are probably toiling away making boilers or something. But once you step inside it’s a whole different world. The shed, made of galvanised steel sheets filling the space between steel girders, encloses office space of 23,000 sq. feet.
“We decided that the office needed to be open, airy and contemporary. We commissioned Paul Kunnel, a Bangalore-based architect, to come up with a design that would meet the above requirements, and Mr Kunnel came up with the idea of the industrial shed design,” says I. Syam Prasad Reddy, managing director and CEO of Indu Projects Ltd.
The roof of the structure is one giant skylight, letting in natural light, while the building is also clad, internally, in aluminium foil strengthened with rock wool. “The foil and rock wool are fire retardant, and the colour is bright gray, which compliments the company’s orange motifs,” says Mr Reddy. The interior of the structure favours a lot of chrome and glass, with senior executive offices taking up the sides. “We used a lot of glass to make the office more open and transparent. This ensures that employees can step into the offices of senior executives if they have a problem,” he says.
The middle is a huge open-plan, with the workstations angled at 120 degrees to each other. “The 120 degree angle has been proved to be ideal, because it provides optimum space to each employee at the workstations,” explains Mr Reddy. “The cost of airconditioning the complex is relatively low because the vents are at mid-height, instead of in the roof or in the sides. This height also helps in spreading the air evenly around the complex,” he says. Currently, IPL has 90 employees working out of its corporate headquarters. The company is building a first floor in the complex to house new hires.
The exceptions appear to be the Indian School of Business, and the Infosys’ campus in Gachibowli. The design of the Microsoft campus, adjacent to ISB, could have been imported, blueprint by blueprint, from the software giant’s global headquarters in Redmond in Washington State in the U.S. Even the parking lots, a Microsoft executive once told me proudly, are similar to those in Redmond. Ditto for Dell, Oracle and IBM.
In such a bland landscape, dominated by assembly-line construction, the headquarters of Indu Projects Ltd., a four-year-old infrastructure company, comes across as a whiff of fresh air. The surprising thing about IPL’s office is that from the outside it looks like a large industrial shed, where, inside, workers are probably toiling away making boilers or something. But once you step inside it’s a whole different world. The shed, made of galvanised steel sheets filling the space between steel girders, encloses office space of 23,000 sq. feet.
“We decided that the office needed to be open, airy and contemporary. We commissioned Paul Kunnel, a Bangalore-based architect, to come up with a design that would meet the above requirements, and Mr Kunnel came up with the idea of the industrial shed design,” says I. Syam Prasad Reddy, managing director and CEO of Indu Projects Ltd.
The roof of the structure is one giant skylight, letting in natural light, while the building is also clad, internally, in aluminium foil strengthened with rock wool. “The foil and rock wool are fire retardant, and the colour is bright gray, which compliments the company’s orange motifs,” says Mr Reddy. The interior of the structure favours a lot of chrome and glass, with senior executive offices taking up the sides. “We used a lot of glass to make the office more open and transparent. This ensures that employees can step into the offices of senior executives if they have a problem,” he says.
The middle is a huge open-plan, with the workstations angled at 120 degrees to each other. “The 120 degree angle has been proved to be ideal, because it provides optimum space to each employee at the workstations,” explains Mr Reddy. “The cost of airconditioning the complex is relatively low because the vents are at mid-height, instead of in the roof or in the sides. This height also helps in spreading the air evenly around the complex,” he says. Currently, IPL has 90 employees working out of its corporate headquarters. The company is building a first floor in the complex to house new hires.
# posted by mashup @ 7:25 PM 
