Designing with an implementation mentality

DA has worked on over 250 projects

Through design leadership, expert knowledge and services excellence, Design Atelier's clear focus is to be an exemplary influence on the design of Indian built environments. We create dynamic solutions through meticulous planning, knowledge and services.

We are a thinking firm that has a cool and collaborative process that gracefully combines the voices and skills of architects, designers and artists, with the strong delivery orientation. Design Atelier is recognized for its strong project management and goals achievement focus.

Design Atelier's green design approach looks for the ideas and implementation planning related to sustaining the life cycle of buildings that live after the construction. Working with the client as a key voice, and by integrating inputs from all building utilities engineering disciplines, we provide clients with well coordinated, well conceived, cost effective and environmentally responsive solutions, that meet the future.

Design Atelier is a full services Architecture, Interiors, Urban Design firm whose designs focus on creating the strong brand identity and 'aura' that gives institutions a special edge in the highly competitive international landscape of new India. Go to our website for more info. 

This illegal "rooftop garden villa" tops them all

An illegal structure built on rooftop of a 26-storey residential building by an eccentric Beijing resident became one of the top news over Internet few days ago. Professor Zhang Biqing spent 6 years building what's referred to in the article as a "rooftop garden villa," with fake rocks and real vegetation above his penthouse apartment. The neighbors got concerned about the possible damage and complained to the authorities. And now the creator of this 'rooftop house' has 15 day to demolish the illegal structure.

The officials of Beijing's chengguan (meaning urban management) have issued an ultimatum to a former government advisor, demanding he tear down the sprawling structure. This rooftop garden villa is built with elaborate fake rocks, real trees and grass and some portions of the structure seems as if they could spill over the edge of the roof at any time.

When reporters of Beijing Morning News, the local newspaper confronted Zhang, he said, "Since I dare to live here, I am not worried about complaints. Famous people come to my place and sing. How can you stop them?"

Using Solar Energy For Green Buildings

As the prices to create and install solar cells continues to decrease, more and more homes and businesses are using solar power for their energy requirements. The use of solar power reduces the amount of carbon used for traditional power sources, and can decrease energy costs, therefore, solar power is gaining popularity in many parts of the world.

The solar power is actually gained by installing solar power cells. There are many different types of solar power cells but 4 of them are widely used. Crystalline silicone, ordinary silicon cells, thin film cells, and concentrator cells are commonly used. Crystalline silicone cells are the cells most commonly used in solar power plants. Just like in most semiconductors, the Crystalline silicone cells are also made from two layers, a positive layer and negative layer and when photons from the sun’s light strikes the semiconductors and released electrons, the electric field is created between the two layers. 

Photovoltaic (PV) Energy

Photovoltaic (PV) panels contain hundreds of small silicon cells that collect the sun's energy and convert it into electricity that can be used in the home or offices. With the appropriate power conversion device (inverter), these PV systems can produce alternating current (AC) compatible with any conventional appliances and operate in parallel with and interconnected to the utility grid.

Dynamic Daylighting

Many companies have also come out with smart solar solutions to increase efficient use of resources. One such solution is to control individual sections in a building such as in a floor-to-ceiling window with a hot glare in only one area, thus allowing a work or living space to use daylight rather than artificial lighting, but hold down glare at the same time, making a comfortable work space and still using less energy.

In nutshell, the sun provides an unlimited resource for power around the world and is becoming a positive energy source for people across the world to reduce their carbon footprint and save on energy expenditure.

Chimes, Gurgaon: Experience Nature Within The Spaces Of The Building

The architecture of the Chimes Building, Gurgaon symbolizes life inside the building and one can experience nature within the spaces of this building. The design of the building takes care of issues like sustainability, sociability, making room for nature, and program flexibility. A novel solution for a multi-tenanted office building with floor plate size flexibility to create a mix of tenants from various service sectors and industries, Chimes becomes a public space that is accessible and thrives at all times of the day and night.

Each floor of the building was envisioned to organize as potentially heterogeneous open-plan environments that can be combined or be separated by user requests with controlled indoor environments and amenities to suit a variety of needs for large and small businesses organized to share common community resources set up in the building. Not surprisingly, this has created a high profile address!

To maximize the use of green spaces and the views from within and outside and make use of the ground, otherwise lost to building footprint, the design places the gardens around glass-lined movement corridors and Staircase cores. You feel close to nature even when you are inside. The symbolism of the landscape and the architectural artifact are intended to enliven the whole ensemble. When you move through the spaces of the building, lift lobbies, holding areas, social spaces, cafeteria and reception which are located along the way, you realize that design has brilliantly used the idea of diverse experience of graded light and shaded spaces, landscape variation to include plant and animal life (etched into the stone surfaces), air, earth, and water as part of each of the pauses and transition experiences.

The architecture is used to develop the building marked by energy efficiency, operational convenience, low operational cost and optimized investment costs. It focuses not only on the façade, sun shading, and lighting details but above all, also on minimizing the energy consumption of the building while optimizing natural light consumption. The building is glazed on the benign North face and on shaded facades with higher performance glass responsive to the conditions. On exposed and direct heat receiving faces a solar façade of small openings set up high on the floor allow less direct heat and maximizes penetrations of light into the plate.

The building consists four interconnected floor plate blocks of varied size and scale organized around climate-modifying, natural-light-giving courtyards. These floor plates are independently equipped with amenities/facilities for all modern office requirements.