Proposal : The India International Centre Annexe

IIC Existing Building

Source: http://newdelhihotels56.wordpress.com/


The India International Centre is a centre for promotion of cultural activity. It has been designed to provide an ideal environment for academic, cultural and intellectual pursuits. It is non-aligned in its motivation and approach and uncommitted to any particular form of governmental, political, economic or religious affiliation. The Centre is of great Historical Significance since it was built in the spirit of building the Great Institutions of a New India fresh after Independence. Since then great thinkers have presented and exchanged ideas at this Centre.  Following its charter, international and national conferences are initiated, as well as programs in music, film, folk and classical cultures, the performing and visual arts and exhibitions.

Source http://www.iicdelhi.nic.in/

THE PROGRAM

An Interior Design proposal was to be given for a new block being built adjacent to the main building having four multipurpose halls, an art gallery, a café, a restaurant and spaces for administration.  The architectural design of the new block was an amalgamation of Stein’s elements of the main building.

THE CONTEXT OF JOSEPH ALLEN STEIN

Designed by Joseph Allen Stein it is of great historical significance to India.  It was important to decode the design methodology of IIC to be able to propose an integrated solution that would be contextual and contemporary.

• Purely Rational – Modern design resolution, incorporating structural engineering, architectural understanding & technologically driven detailing.
• Use of vernacular materials and architectural elements in Modern structural vocabulary.
• Material Usage is Pure – there is no surface treatment on already used materials, thus life cycle is very high.
• Material Systems used for Form Definition.

DESIGN METHODOLOGY

Rather than merely replicating Stein’s architectural details used all over the main building, it was debated how he would have designed with the technology and array of materials available today. The Interior design was conceptualized in the spirit of Stein’s architecture, a rational contextual Modernism.

• Understanding and Analysis of the Function, the Program, the Context and time.
• Rationally Deriving Solutions at the Macro and the Micro tied in a Lateral Thought Process.
• Technologically driven detailing for intelligent multivalent solutions.
• Pure Material System Selection, complete and mutually independent – for long life cycle and easy serviceability.

THE MULTIPURPOSE HALLS

The Multipurpose Halls required multiple lighting ambiences. With a coffer slab as the ceiling, an over-layered metal grid was designed in the geometry of the coffer. The grid hanging below the coffer would cater to the various lighting requirements ambient, direct, reflected integrated with a master automation control for various degrees of dimming and would keep the context of the coffer intact.

Ceiling Grid for Multipurpose Halls

View: Multipurpose Hall

Customized wall panels were designed to meet the acoustic requirements of the spaces.

Customised Acoustic Wall Panelling

Acoustic Movable Walls were proposed for separating spaces within the halls for separate functions.

Acoustic Movable Walls

Source: http://www.movablewallsystems.com/

THE ART GALLERY

It was debated that the art gallery should house touch screens, projectors, cameras to propagate all the new art that technology has helped bring about. It should not only be able to house canvas, but many other forms of installations as well, like video and interactive arts.

Interactive Touch Screens

Source: http://www.interactiondesignblog.com/2008/10/20-cool-interaction-design-concepts/

Promo video for a large, interactive installation that gives the user a chance to play with flowing water without getting wet. The concept, which won an RSA Design directions award, is by Mark Burton. Copyright 2007 Mark Burton

The Art Gallery had a large dome at its centre, which restricted the arrangements for exhibitions to a limited number of possibilities. To make the space more flexible a hexagonal space grid was developed which would display artwork and its respective lighting in any desired arrangement.

Art Gallery Hexagonal Space Grid

 

Flexible Gallery Space

OTHER AREAS

A series of finishes from Stein’s original building were proposed to be projected at selected wall spaces in common areas as part of the interior finishing, making the surfaces multi-valent and starting a historical record of the building on itself.

Other material systems included various kinds of ready to install open and closed metal grid ceilings, foldable acoustic partitions, acoustic fire retardant carpets, epoxy floors, ready to install wooden floors, kota stone flooring, terrazzo flooring, acoustic wall claddings and black out blinds. 

Competition : School of Planning & Architecture Campus Design 2009

Aerial View

ENVIRONMENT FOR ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION

Designing an environment for architectural education, leads to questioning the linear understanding of mono-valent space. Mono-valent architectural spaces create rigid environments, built block vis-a-vis open space.

A campus for architecture requires spaces that can stimulate the mind, places that rather than evoking an end, become part of a process making them multi-valent. A subtle diffused sequence of open and built spaces formed out of an operation of skewing and expanding is used to attain non-linear spaces.

Spaces by virtue of their use and movement patterns can overlap increasing overlaps of users, facilitating the chance meetings of the different specialized disciplines – on a whole becoming a platform of synthesis towards a greater generalized understanding of the entire paradigm of design.

Skewing of Grids

A departure from historicity frees the mind of memory. Architectural language superimposes on the mind-memory (ironically at times learned-memory rather than acquired-memory). A design environment should free itself of styles, languages; a spirit of freedom should prevail. A return to nature inspired from the lines of the site give rise to a morphological operation that tends towards being geologic – an environmental expression and outcome in qualitative and quantitative parameters respectively.

The quest for development has brought human kind to the brink of disturbing the balance of nature. The entire planet is at risk today from just a single century of human development. With almost half the entire energy resources being used for and by buildings it is of utmost importance that a design institute not only thrive to be self sustained in its energy needs throughout its entire life cycle but propagate and be didactic in its design expression as well.     

Design Process

Environment: Systems & Considerations

URBAN & TOPOGRAPHICAL RESPONSE 

The need for a physical boundary all along the site perimeter to attain a full degree of closure (security being a major concern), hinders the stimuli – response relationship of a design institute with the city. The edge at the point of entrance has thus been expanded into a public place, which acts as the desired platform. Major public functions which can involve interaction with the city - the auditorium, cafes, galleries, open air exhibition spaces; display screens have been placed there. Students can display their works, expressions, stage plays and appropriate the space in other ways. This place can act as a centre for social awareness for the civil society.

The Urban Interface: City Edge

The canyon is an extremely strong topographical land form in the site. In the program the canyon has been considered as a environmental zone pulling the context of the biodiversity park from across the site. It is being recharged with plantation, the seasonal water body being transformed into a permanent water body by harvesting means. Informal movement from all across the surrounding areas, slope down into the canyon. A peripheral pedestrian edge deliberately lowered to make the experience more intimate acts as a students’ informal place which also connects up to the open spaces of the surrounding academic blocks and the students’ centre.

The Canyon

The pedestrian connection between the urban interface and the seat of the canyon becomes a raised formal promenade. The edges of the promenade formed by the academic blocks on one side and the Cultural hub on the other dictate the urban architectural vocabulary within the campus. The cultural edge is interspersed with a continuous water feature which acts as natural cooling system during the summer months. Open spaces on the side of the academic block flow down as a series of landscaped terraces into the canyon. The open spaces on the cultural side flows down into the activity areas of the residential blocks. The promenade is a place and not a connection, acting as a spillover of the cultural hub with functions like architectural museum, exhibition spaces, galleries, alumni centre, cafe and the spillover from the academic blocks as well as the students’ centre. This is a place of interaction between alumni, students, faculty, exchange students, researchers and international guests.

The Promenade

The edge of the site which traces the road has been developed to form a stark urban response at the city level. With the urban interface punctuating this line we see a series of blocks rising and falling in an overall binding geometry. The residential blocks placed at the closest edge to the residential fabric of the city forms a clear desired disjunction in the language. Pauses of dense greenery in-between the blocks connect the Biodiversity Park from across the road to the site.