It seems like it's award time for us!

We at 'Design Atelier' were delighted to hear that "Sufi Park" project in Chandigarh is chosen as the winning entry in the Emerson Cup Award 2013 under “New Buildings” category from emerging cities. Very recently, the Chimes Building, Gurgaon designed by us got LEED/IGBC Gold Rating. Chimes building has also been awarded the "Green Project of the Year" by Construction Week Awards 2013.

We consider ourselves as a thinking firm that has a cool and collaborative process that gracefully combines the voices and skills of architects, designers and artists, with a strong delivery orientation. We create dynamic solutions through meticulous planning, knowledge and services. 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.

Campus Architecture: How important are buildings to learning?

 

Does architectural design play any role in improving educational outcomes? Can a building design improve student creativity? Experts believe that the size and shape of our school buildings can shape the way we teach and learn. The learning process or building technologies may change, but the campus will always remain a serene place to think and dream. A study by University of Salford, UK, suggests that well-designed classrooms could improve pupil performance by 25%. The innovative campus designs can impact both the students and teachers. The buildings can support behavior, which in turn will support the teachers.

Design Atelier believes that through design up-gradation campuses can be responsive to continuous re-invention. The focus should be on integrating campus functions, technology, landscape and, urban life and ambiance, ensuring social, economic and environmental sustainability.

Is there a building with scorching effect near you?

Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/Demotix/Corbis

A new office building on London's skyline has been reflecting intense sunlight from its glass exterior. The building is nicknamed as the Walkie Talkie and is being blamed for melted car parts. In a broadcast for Sky News one reporter has even proved that it is possible to fry an egg in the reflected sunlight. The concave side wall of the 37-storey skyscraper at 20 Fenchurch Street, is reflecting intense sunlight and heat on to the street below. 

Local businessman Martin Lindsay said his high-spec Jaguar XJ, parked on Eastcheap, had warped panels along one side. The wing mirror and badge had also melted from the heat of the reflection, he claimed while speaking to Sky News.

As the news spread about the tower which is due to open early next year, people and media have now been saying that the London skyscraper isn't the only building magnifying the sun's hot rays to streets below. Buildings in Dallas and Las Vegas have also been found to create a similar phenomenon - some even burning residents below reports Guardian.   

How many other buildings in the UK or for that matter in the world were having the scorching effect? Have you being experiencing similar skyscraping nightmares in your locality? Share with us!

Business Importance and Market Demand Driving Green Building Growth

With sustainability and energy efficiency initiatives taking an upward swing around the world, business firms are finding business value and opportunities from green building, including the opportunity for new environmentally responsible products. This is the outcome of a study "World Green Building Trends SmartMarket Report" published by McGraw-Hill Construction.

"The acceleration of the green building marketplace around the world is creating markets for green building products and technologies, which in turn will lead to faster growth of green building," said Harvey Bernstein, vice president of Industry Insights and Alliances at McGraw-Hill Construction. "And the fact that green is growing in all parts of the world indicates that there are market opportunities in both established markets as well as developing countries." 

The construction firms all over the world now believes that more than 60 percent of their work will be green. From 2012 to 2015, it is assumed by the firms that work will go green more than triple in South Africa, double in Germany, Norway and Brazil and will grow between 33 and 68 percent in the United States, Singapore, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates and Australia.

"This report confirms that the green building movement has shifted from 'push' to 'pull' - with markets increasingly demanding no less than green buildings," said John Mandyck, chief sustainability officer, UTC Climate, Controls & Security. "By promoting greater efficiency for energy and water, green buildings lower building costs while conserving the earth's precious resources. This powerful combination of built-in payback with environmental stewardship creates a new value proposition that is accelerating green building in all regions of the globe." 

For more key findings from the World Green Building Trends SmartMarket Report, visit http://analyticsstore.construction.com/index.php/world-green-building-trends-smartmarket-report-2013.html

Architecture in Tune With the Climate

A different kind of approch is being put into practice to create architecture in tune with the climate. A recent article published in The New York Times informs that from a state-of-the-art recycling center in Brooklyn to sustainable rebuilding efforts for places hit by Hurricane Sandy, a host of green projects are on the horizon.

Perez Art Museum Miami; Jonathan Chesley/Selldorf Architects; Alex Garvin

Varying shades of green: clockwise from top left, Herzog and de Meuron’s building for the Pérez Art Museum in Miami; the Sims Municipal Recycling Facility in Brooklyn, by Selldorf Architects; the Lakeside Center at Prospect Park in Brooklyn, by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien.

"Today, most designers know to build green, when they can. And they know to try to make a public noise when they do. Green is chic; whether you’re designing a skyscraper or a children’s spoon, it sells," said author of the article, Philip Noble. Now there is a more concerted effort by architects to take a broad view, countering climate change not only by altering the design of buildings, but also the design of the larger systems in which they function.

The article talks about the current projects that are being undertaken with this new seriousness by various agencies and highlights about two design programs rolling out this year and next, both inspired by the impact of Hurricane Sandy, are evidence of big thinking along the same lines: learning to solve with systems, not style. Read full article here.

Creating public spaces that are accessible and enable the experience of nature within the spaces of the building

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.