Connect April 2022

In today’s world, architectural practice has no boundaries and for a professional firm, opportunities will be varied and diverse. Large scale urbanization has accompanied rapid economic growth. As economic and human capital becomes more fluid it flows wherever there is opportunity. The practice of architecture too is getting increasingly multi focal, geographically diffused and organizationally decentred. For an architectural practice, getting a foothold in this brave new world involves rapid adaptation to tackle issues that are both global and local.

As an architectural practice, our paramount concern is the act of realizing the clients objective and simultaneously orchestrating a larger idea that takes place within a specific program and context. Working amid a multitude of needs and constraints, as an architectural practice we have constantly evolved. We have felt the need to be agile, ubiquitous and networked. The act of listening to clients is of paramount importance and we consider our interaction with clients an integral part of the design process. With clients showing greater appreciation for design and a growing concern to social and environmental issues, there is a clear call to be more engaged, more creative, more innovative and more efficient than ever before.

Our design methodology continues to be highly process driven. As a practice we have a profound interest in issues of site, context, environment and materiality. For us each project is a journey. When we are at the beginning of a journey, we contemplate a concept that does not yet exist. Absence and loss precede the appearance of an abstract driving force. Chaos, confusion and implosion of information bound up in constraints, regulations and limited means precede every architectural project. Once the imagined concept takes hold, it’s correctness is tested at multiple levels from site and context to program and space, to material and light. The journey from the abstract to the concrete is a metamorphosis of an idea to coherent purpose to physical form and materiality.

Over the last thirty years, as an architectural practice we have grown substantially, both in terms of our team and the size and diversity of projects. For us this has been a significant challenge of growing up. To address this challenge we have evolved and instituted various processes to deliver innovation with efficiency. It is our sincere belief that as projects grow ever larger and more complex, as the global marketplace becomes more competitive, the architect's vision should lead and drive the market rather than be driven by the market.

As a practice we have never felt the need for a personal or stylistic signature for our projects. For us the act of weighing the diverse factors and interpreting them through a personal filter enhances the development of the built form and achieves a specific solution for each project. The practice encompasses a wide array of projects ranging from small residential buildings to large housing projects to corporate workplaces to hospitality and institutional projects. Over the last decade, our repertoire has expanded to master plans and urban design for large mixed use developments. Our clients and projects demonstrate the diversity of the practice and the complexity of working with equal care and attention on a wide range of projects. We are extremely proud of the fact that most of our projects are built and represent a humble attempt to articulate the issues that concern our practice.

The first issue is realigning the global and the local. We live and work in a world in which the nuance of culture has been evened out by fluid workings of global capital. As architects we have to acknowledge that our ability to intervene and redirect these forces at a global level is limited. The encounter between global production and local reception is never simple and one sided. There is always an active process of shaping and reforming.

The second issue is the advent of new programs and building typologies. As an architectural practice we have learnt to develop a language to absorb and innovate these new building types. There is a need to adapt these new building programs to local context and culture.

The third issue is the changing nature of architectural production. Embedded in the mundane work of architectural production is a new definition of design. The management of information sharing has increased substantially with a wide range of experts involved in the design process. Architectural practices trained in assigning singular value to the aesthetic of the object will instead need to focus on the elegance and efficiency of the process.

The fourth issue is sustainability. The energy consumed by our buildings and built environment has assumed significant importance for the profession. There is a need to move away the checklist approach specified by rating agencies and focus on sustainable passive design strategies that marry technology, data and local building traditions.

Lastly, we live in a society based on data and information technology. As information technology and artificial intelligence become the domain of computers, society has placed new value on the one human characteristic that can’t be automated. As a practice we are deeply concerned about generating an architecture that goes beyond the pragmatic of program and site. An architecture that creates a series of relationships and narratives with the occupants. An architecture that is composed of multiple simultaneous stories that unfold throughout the buildings and spaces that we create.