The project was a commissioned work for the Future Concepts Group which had been in the bath and wellness industry for more than 25 years. Our early idea was to embrace a quarter century of memories they had; not to do a complete intervention; not to separate them from where they belong. We wanted to make sure our new structure paid hue homage to the pre-existing boundaries; its relations and its memories, albeit in a more expanded manner.
The client’s requirements were solid, a showroom space to display the products in the best-planned manner possible. We wanted to design a structure with a unique massing and composition that sort of ages with the growth around it.
The building portrays a vivid sense of duality – the duality of a very static volume and dynamic volume. So there exists this evident dichotomy between the movements of these two volumes. The lower periphery of the building has this playful narrative – where nature and its prospect form beautiful imagery and this seamless transparency you experience through the long stretch of glass evokes enough democracy. Whereas the upper volume seems much more definite and static but forms a true skin that is really animated by the play of daylight and bringing it alive in a way that only light can do.
We never wanted to surround the space with an over stimuli of images, rather give abundant natural light and the sound of the pressing landscape that really ground the space; making the space more to be felt, rather than seen. So it is that stillness that let us ‘feel’ most of the times.
This drama of lines and perspectives dominates the interiors. You walk further and you find these slender long parallels – through which the stairs climb up – conveying a seamless flow of energy from above and vice versa.
Can we make sure the quality of our intervention embraces history and welcome a meaningful dialogue with the present?