vinfast global showroom design

Design team: Vasant Packirisamy, Vikas Sharma, Monish Siripurapu, Sakshi Kumar, Komal Gupta

The brief calls for a Low cost disaster resilient housing in Manila, Philippines. A composite structure with a concrete core & a lighter modular units flanking the core have been proposed. Different prototypes were experimented with before reaching the bamboo structure proposed around the solid core.  The key design attributes are modularity, refuge during natural calamities & least possible carbon footprint by use of locally available materials & strategies.

Design team: Jyoti Mithal, Vikas Sharma

A shift is proposed from the notion of the museum as a building displaying a collection of objects to the notion of a structure that is populated with varied experiences, Indian war history has to offer. The idea is to find a more immediate and direct relationship between the container and the contained. The project envisions a greater role for the National war museum - freeing itself from the limiting boundaries of the insular & isolated from the city fabric typologies of the past, composing an urban fabric at all levels. The project shall also serve as an institution of excellence for learning, research, & documentation for the Defence forces. It shall be a common ground for all Defence verticals as well as general public for gatherings, collaborations, celebrations & learning. The site is envisaged to function separately as well as together for Museum program & Institutional facilities.

Design team: Jyoti Mithal, Vikas Sharma

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this proposal is to provide a serene environment for the memorial service for our war heroes. The proposal aims at strengthening this idea by creating memorial space within an urban park, contextually appropriate to the nation’s space.

THE CONTEXT

Rooted within a strong historical context, the site offers an opportunity to participate & interact with the elements of the Nation’s most prominent civic space. Rajpath axis, horizontal greens, order through organisation of buildings along the axis, linearity interlinked with strong nodes & India Gate form a perfect setting for commemorating our war heroes. Our project aims at reinforcing the Rajpath axis by aligning to its linearity and carving out a green serene space for the memorial - out of the mega horizontal greens. In the process there has been a conscious attempt to take clues from the integral geometry & planning principles of Lutyens Zone.

VISUAL CONFLUENCE OF THE EXISTING AND THE PROPOSED

The materials/architectural styles/ proportions/scale have been carefully studied in the vicinity. No structures except for the memorial wall, public utilities and landscape features have been proposed. Sunken spaces with trees around have been conceived within the existing greens. Public toilets have been proposed in the sunken Intersection court in Lawn 1 to have minimum visual interference within the hexagon.

Design Team: Vasant Packirisamy, Sakshi Kumar, Monish Siripurapu, Ankit Jain, Vikas Sharma, 

The New site offers self-sufficient hospitality units, providing different urban and socio-economical probabilities and possibilities in a sustainable environment. The program includes basically hotel blocks, resorts, tree houses, banquets halls, swimming pools, shopping facilities, offices, recreational and social areas, pedestrian zones and public spaces. Traffic and parking organizations will provide easy access within the site as well as building healthy and direct relations with the lake front. 

The plot of the New Lake front Development comprises a significant number of structurally independent low and medium rise buildings ranging in heights, tallest being approximately 30m above ground level. There will be independent resorts closer to the lake, and the blocks will be lower as they are closer to the waterfront and will get higher at the back rows. As most of the existing old buildings will be demolished, few are recommended to transform to be used as social and cultural facilities in order to gain an added value socially and economically, and in order to keep the record of the character of this lake and land around it. The overall principle is to respect the traces of the evolution of the region. 

The site also presents a new opportunity for the city of Karnal to engage ecology at both a strategic and detailed level. The new master plan aims to enhance and link the existing ecology around the site but to also draw that ecology and natural quality into the very core of the new development. 

Design Team: Vikas Sharma, Sudhir Prakash

The River Yamuna and the Reserved Forest being the two ecosystems around the TECH ZONE 1 provide a starting point for an engaged process of design. The natural greens around the site offer an opportunity to engage the built and the landscape. The STREAM OF LIFE – Yamuna River provides a beautiful viewing horizon on the west side. The vision is to create a built form that provides a sense of identity rather than just being another IT tower. Public friendly landscape and inviting frontage could act as unique selling point for the project. Being at the deep end of the TECHZONE 1, the site has the potential to become a destination point for the IT sector.

A dual facing form responsive to the river and the forest is conceived. Keeping the heavier mass on the Yamuna facing, the hotel and the residential components are given the riverside view. North and east facing terraces provide a shaded outdoor space in the daytime. The front landscape is extended to the plot edge and is raised to merge with the built form in a way that public functions become easily accessible and a joy to engage with. 

The 'Green Spine' is a sustainable, green gateway to the Spiretec Development. The spine creates an easily identifiable ‘green lung’ and 'heart' for the IT complex and a ‘sustainable’ brand and identity for Spiretec. It provides a shared pathway at lower levels with links to public facilities and delivers a healthy environment through connected courtyards, terraces and roof gardens. The Green Spine shows a new vision for integrating a site’s built form and natural elements. It is conceived to be the spirit of the SPIRETEC and acts as a connecting element between the spire and the ground. Sky gardens and pools are distributed throughout the residential spaces at upper levels with the purpose to regulate humidity and temperature for climate control, as well as contributing to a sense of community. 

Design Team: Vikas Sharma, Monish Siripurapu, Ankit Jain

FRACTAL NATURE & STEEL

"Fractals possess structural self-similarity on multiple ... scales, meaning that a piece of a fractal will often look like the whole.''

• Steel rib structure generated from functional and site requirements (west side shaded, landscape on the pedestrian edge & requirement of two column free levels.)
• One steel rib used as a fractal to generate a linear form desirable for conflict free traffic movement in the site.
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• The structure is treated mainly as a varying repetition of steel ribs, allowing for varying experiences and occupation of the interior space, calibrated along the sweeping facade.
• The shaping of the steel rib for lateral stability and forces at the supports produces sloped surfaces that are opportunistically divided into different floors.
• The steel rib structure allows for an experiential continuity of the landscape and the infrastructure, blurring the distinction between the two.

Design Team: Vikas Sharma    

Redevelopment model for Housing

21st century urban development models seem ineffective in solving problems of urban growth over populated areas. The commutes are increasing day by day. People are not finding place to live inside the city, either due to affordability or unavailability. Both the factors are a result of an approach where people are spread away from each other on the flat ground. Planning is done to divide the land into different uses and hence giving definite volume to each piece of land. Over due course of time, these developments turn insufficient for the increasing population. Hence it is right to say that presently the development models followed are STATIC and 2 DIMENSIONAL. 

 Also the amount of energy going into infrastructure is much larger than what is required to run buildings. The 2 dimensional planning approach leads to longer roads and bigger infrastructure. It is ironical that not much has been done to control this sprawl. Instead we are busy designing sustainable buildings. It is a fact that a slight decrease in commute can have a larger positive impact on environment than few sustainable buildings. Cities are like human bodies. If one part of the system fails, it is just a matter of time till the whole system collapses. So there is a need to question the very basics of land based development models which restrict the future growth of inner parts of the city.

This proposal is a step in finding a new way of urbanism for inner parts of 21st century cities. A development model where land is not the deciding factor for the amount of people living in the core of the city. Instead the density is ever-changing as per the need. An approach where planning and architecture are not two hierarchal stages of development. Instead they are the design determinants for each other. The focus of the thesis is particularly on housing. The amenities, facilities and workplaces also form components of the urban strategy, which is mainly to create livable and comfortable housing for people inside the city without doing minimum damage to the existing development, hence making the scheme a more practical solution rather than a Utopian idea for urbanism.

The site selection is done through a process involving the comparison of three different types of housing prototypes in Delhi. The planned colonies (East Kidwai Nagar), unplanned settlement (Arjun Nagar) and an urban village area (Shakarpur) are studied in terms of density and living conditions. Shakarpur S block is selected as final site for interventions as it is found to be the most interesting in terms of location and potential for redevelopment.

The architectural program consists of two components. Firstly the existing development on the site is retained to maximum possible limits. Secondly the proposed development which constitutes 4000 dwelling units of 4 different types, including all the amenities required for a neighborhood. The office spaces and large scale commercials also form a part of the program. 

The conceptual framework is based on deriving the relations between different uses from the existing fabric and then converting it into 3 dimensional diagrams which can be used to make multidimensional units which allow for addition on any side without affecting the living conditions inside the units.