Morphogenesis Architects is an architectural practice with world leadership in sustainable architecture. Sonali Rastogi and Manit Rastogi founded the firm in 1996. Today it employs over 190 specialists of the world of architecture in Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru. Morphogenesis Architects are recognisable also as one of the first architectural practices that reported a gender-positive pay gap in favor of their women employees. Four out of five departments in the firm are led by women. The success of their choices and undertakings, to give a voice to female architects and provide an example of equality in the world of architecture, is shown in their percentage of employment, 49% male employment, 51% female employment. Their projects are a genesis of an eco-valuable form of architecture, the architecture of the late presence, and the future.
Below is the list of 15 such projects by Morphogenesis Architects:
1. Harley Davidson Corporate Office// Gurugram, India | Morphogenesis Architects
The project aims to create a space that will be characterized not only as an office but customized to hosts also events, workshops, and parties. Its design concept adapts the use of traditional materials to correlate the structure with its locality.
2. Chettinad Health City Auditorium// Chennai, India
Chettinad Health City is a center for healthcare and research. A center that takes education in medicine, architecture, academics, law, etc. as a primal force to attain the best quality in individual and global knowledge, as well as a societal contributor. Morphogenesis Architects designed the Auditorium, part of the medical institute, with the absolute essentials needed to make it work, due to limited resources. The acoustics were at the top of the list of essentials, enabled via three geometric surfaces extending from the floor to the wall and the ceiling, making it look like one continuous surface. The playfulness of shadow and light enabled by the dynamic surfaces contributes to the character of the auditorium, which is anything but a typical morphology of an auditorium.
3. The Woodside// Kasauli, India
The project was finished in 2016, and it is a low-density villa development. 37 luxury residential villas strategically placed on a mountain, to reduce the need for cutting and reforming the natural terrain and vegetation. The villa’s general design is a two-wing composition, connected at a pin-joint that enables open or closed wing, depending on the ground and the location of the house on the terrain. They look seemingly identical, right? However, all the villas are different from each other. The uniformity of their design lies in the insurance that each of the 37 villas gets an unobstructed panoramic view of the Shimla Valley.
4. Institute for Integrated Learning in Management Greater Noida, India
The IILM Campusis located in Shahjahanabad, the old settlement of Delhi. It is a student housing, based on the idea that via architecture and the practicality of spatial development, this center of student community will achieve the key components of the socio-cultural quality in need. To house and inspire students. The playful configuration of stairs, courtyards, terraces, and backyards, in an aligned connection with the existing streets, is enabling a climate of similar temperatures with the outdoors throughout the building. The building’s communal spaces are located in the subterranean courtyards, enabling optimal light penetration via itself and the perforated façade. Four blocks were built in the first phase in 2013. This project was awarded The FuturArc Green Leadership Award, for innovative and ecologically responsible architecture in Asia.
5. Delhi Art Gallery// Mumbai, India | Morphogenesis Architects
The Gallery is part of a century-old building in Kala Ghoda, located in an important and historic part of Mumbai. The project is based on the idea of Adaptive Reuse, preserving the heritage of the meaning of the building’s original design, whilst designing and reconstructing the new “layer” complementing the history of the district. The “fresh” design is contemporary minimal, not invading the spaciousness a space like this requires, all whilst accenting the history elements embedded in the original design.
6. Ansal University// Gurugram, India
The servitude of the added building, designed by Morphogenesis Architects, is an educational and cultural house for the students in the already existing university. It houses mainly spaces for learning, student services, gathering area, a space for public functions, etc. The idea of the building is to correlate with its surroundings, encouraging the students to enjoy and engage with nature.
7. Uppal Housing// Gurugram, India
The building separates itself from the “usual” type of office typology. Its design is precisely based on the idea of accommodating offices that will have an adequate source of daylight, a cooling system provided by built mass on only two sides of the building, while the rest of its structure is a play of open-closed spaces, supporting the baseline of a pro-environmental type of building.
8. Rajaswa Bhawan// New Delhi, India
This project comes as a potential model-answer to New Delhi’s future urban density question. It also resonates with the question of privacy and segregation, whilst giving a solution to the problem of spatial and environmental issues of an urban mix of different typologies.
9. Apollo Headquarters// Gurugram, India
The Apollo Headquarters is a project born in a period of changes in the Indian economy. The strive for economic liberalization translates greatly to the manuscript of this blueprint. This project becomes an exemplar of the evolving Indian workplace. It was awarded The Indian Institute of Architects Award.
10. ITC Campus// Kolkata, India | Morphogenesis Architects
ITC Campus is a mixed-use commercial development, reflecting the heritage of Bengal art and craft on its facades as on canvases. It is an urban center housing typologies as corporate offices, a hotel, conventional gathering places for public events, and residential towers. Intertwined among these typologies are open transitional places for mixed-use of public character.
11. Surat Diamond Bourse// Surat, India | Morphogenesis Architects
Once the construction is done, this building is set out to be the World’s Single Largest Office Building, with 4.500 offices, variable in size. The central spine is used as a huge hallway connecting the towers on different levels, which are designed and positioned to welcome the self-shading factor, therefore reducing the need for additional forms of cooling. The office-center is expected to become the center of the International diamond trade.
12. Infosys Campus// Mihan, Nagpur, India
The project is still under construction, however, its aim is to be qualified as the most sustainable office building in the world, by request of the client. Morphogenesis Architects took the project as an opportunity to develop a potential prototype model for future sustainable master-planning on bigger sites. The idea and realization, as well as functionality, tested upon finishing the project, includes net-zero on water, waste on landfill, and reduction in nature-harmful usability of energy sources.
13. Villas in Siolim// Goa, India
The project is to be situated around the Chapora River, enabling 14 plot lands for 14 residential villas, all specifically positioned to attain the best views out of every villa. Each villa is characterized as a sculptural object, with horizontal roof planes to shade the structure and help with the channelization of the wind into the building, thus helping for the villas to be climate-adequate.
14. The Architect’s House + Studio// New Delhi, India
The house is designed to cultivate a domestic atmosphere, a workplace environment, and to serve as a cultural hub when needed. In its central core, the house hosts an entire eco-system, living and growing, right next to the dining table, and the staircase. The uniqueness of this house lies in every corner of its design.
15. Glasshouse by the Ganges// Rishikesh, India | Morphogenesis Architects
This project is said to be in progress, although not a lot of information is given about it. Needless to say, it appears to be in the Landscape and Hospitality category, and we are yet to see its realization.
