Techno India Salt Lake

This is an institution project with a distinct brief - the building is to be shared between Techno India and used as their Salt lake headquarters, and the Society of Education, Health and Welfare.Located in a high density institutional zone near City Centre Salt Lake, the surround areas were populated by high rise institutional buildings and had limited exposure to the street. The challenge of emphasis was resolved in a form that accentuated the front visible presence with a strong, dominant façade. The building itself had two independent circulation cores, and two separate accesses (one for each entity).

The building structurally behaved akin to a bridge that spanned these two circulation cores. The materiality and presence was a contrast of materials, creating a juxtaposing intersection of two masses. A sizeable amount of green spaces were introduced, in the ground, at intermediate levels and also at the roof. These helped to soften the mass of the built and break down the imposing scale into multiple human interactable interfaces.

Multiple semi-open spaces and spill outs were generated which enabled and supported multiple uses and nuanced activities. These also helped improve passive air-flow and create cooling and ventilating cross-drafts through the building. A stress of natural light ingress further brought down embodied energy use and operations costs.

Location: Salt Lake City, Kolkata
Client: Techno India Limited and Society for Education, Health and Welfare)
Area: 1857 sqm (00 sqm per user)
Year: 2011 - ongoing