Shipara is a new office building tucked into a tight urban site with overbearing buildings on three sides. The front edge faces a lush park in liberating contrast.
Project Name– Shipara
Studio Name– Sujit Nair Design Group (SDeG)
Status– Built
Location – Bangalore, India
Built up area – 340 sq.m
Project year – 2011 – 2012
Design team – Sujit, Balaji
Photographs – Clare Arni
Structural design – Eco Consultants
Contractor (Civil) – JK Constructions
Project team – Sujit, Balaji, Gayathri, Anju, Darshan, Prabhakar, Ananya
The programmatic functions are organized on alternating split levels. A circulation spiral orchestrates movement within the volume and links the various staff and management zones. Façade and roof apertures are strategically located to force natural light through, and swerve in different directions to capture defined views of foliage and tree-tops.
While much of the building’s expression is derived from an articulated internal experience, its perched form is further emphasized by a recessed, arched base. We imagined a muted material palette for Shipara; and only colored glazing offsets the concrete finishes, in reaction to the parks’ green hues.
Material/construction details :
Composite structure – Structural steel with RCC. Structural steel used to optimise spans and member sizes.
Facade – Smooth Cement plaster finish on cast in-situ ferro-concrete construction. Laminated glass(13.5mm) on stainless steel frames. Colored glazing used to offset concrete finishes, in response to the parks’ green hues.
Other materials used include oxidised cement floors, mica panels for cladding, leather-textured granites, MS for architectural steel, sliding glass partitions.
Special features :
1- Spiralling circulation around central core.
2 – Fenestration design:
i – strategically positioned skylights and windows for maximum daylight and ventilation in response to dense urban context
ii – for maximum views towards park
3 – Open plan, split-level design to optimise:
i – floor plate efficiency( approx 900 sft on each level)
ii – seperate staff and management zone
4 – Minimalist material palette in response to variegated streetscape.
Sujit Nair |
Sujit Nair is principal designer and founder of SDeG. In the past, he has worked as ‘Architect’ at Zaha Hadid Architects, London in project teams that won several international design competitions
(including the ‘Aquatic Centre’ – 2012 London Olympics). Sujit holds a Masters’ degree in ‘Architecture and Urbanism’ from the Architectural Association, London (2004). Sujit has been active in architectural education, as visiting design critic at several architecture schools. He has lectured at architect forums, design schools and public events.
Aruna Sujit |
Aruna Sujit is Co-founder and Principal Architect at SDeG. As ‘Design leader’ at SHELL India Marketing [P] Ltd, she was responsible for the design of over two-hundred SHELL fuel stations and retail outlets across the country and closely involved in project execution, co-ordination and quality management. Aruna is Architect and Urban designer with a Master’s degree in Urban Design from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi. Aruna has taught at the undergraduate and post-graduate levels and is currently visiting professor at BMSCE, Bangalore.
SDeG ( Sujit Nair Design Group )
was founded in 2007 and is currently involved in projects of varied types and scales. The practice is interested in the many possibilities that emerge from complex urban flows and shifts in culture, politics, socio-economic patterns, belief systems and capital, resulting in Architecture of wide-ranging circumstances. By aiming to be consistently experimental and switching tactics swiftly, design can be liberated from predetermined and preservationist notions – SDeG
believes in an architecture of overlapping attitudes, technologies and techniques, that respond to fluid project situations and contemporary urban transformations.
