Mumbai Buildings

Shah Signature, Navi Mumbai The Shah Signature building is located in Navi Mumbai. The clients in this project are Shah group Projects and infraprojects Ltd. And the project was executed by Soyuz Talib Architects. The site where the building is located is 1800 sqm, a footprint of 825 sqm and a built up of 13,000 sqm and the total built up area was 138,000 Sq.F.t.

The total cost of putting up the building is estimated to be 2387.40 Lacs (Kalpana Struct, 2012).The project for the Shah Signature building was designed by the Firm Associates, Architects in India, Asia which is a team famous for its sustainability intrinsic to good designs. The structural consultants of this building were Shanghai & Associates.

Work on the building commenced on the 2nd of February 2012 and the work completed on the 30th of April 2013.it is a commercial project for showrooms as well as offices by the Shah Group in Navi Mumbai. The work comprises of a ground and 21 floors commercial building that is made up of shops within the ground floor, and 1st floor, parking from the second to the fifth level and finally offices above the fifth level.

The ancillary program for the building comprises of multi-level parking that is made up car lifts as well as gyms and fine-dine restaurants (Kalpana Struct, 2012).The floor count of the building is to be 23; it has an A/C entrance lobby made up of high quality Italian marble floor, the structural design is such that it is resistant earthquakes, a retail area that is high-tech and offices that are column free.it also has a panoramic view of the sea and an intelligent building management system has monitors and guarantees high security.

The building also has secure access to high internet speeds, a telephone option that is highly customized .on top of that the building is under 24-hour CCTV surveillance hence it is very secure. The building has high capacity passenger lifts that are of great efficiencies because they have a power back up the lifts as well as for the normal lighting (Dsouza, 2012). The principal Architects involved in the project were Sundeep Gwash and Vishal Shaha who are the founders of the FIRM which they founded in 1999.

Their aim is to become a design firm that is highly respected, known for the excellence in their designs, a great organization and finally satisfy the clients. They have a design philosophy is the architecture is the users response, their content emotionally towards the spaces that have been created. This is what forma the basis of their philosophy in the course of their practice. The project team that was involved in bringing it to reality included Trushali Gandre, Kedar Dalvi and Chaitali Amin.

The sustainability of the building was done by Deepika Batra Gwash. This project has been quite an interesting one considering the ambitious design brief the clients had as well as the manifestation of this design into quite an iconic architecture in the making.

The iconic sail of the form of this building is a representation of the local context in the past as well as its futuristic bend that appears in the present context for the site of the project which is located in the twenty-first century of the Navi Mumbai city. The form centric design of the building as it was conceptualized for the project was quite appealing to the client immediately it was presented.

There were different options that were put into consideration in the pre-design stage and the design was finalized eventually based on the concept as well as better energy performance vis-a-vis form and orientation (NBM Media Pvt. Ltd., 2010). The building is a mixed-use high rise one, referred to as a signature tower is made up of offices on upper floors while retail shopping activity taking place within the basement and lower floors.

The location is on the corner plot hence the open space found on the ground is well utilized since it acts as an open deck for the public spill -- over from the existing retail mall which is a good change for vicinity that is otherwise crowded. The special facade structure of the building is determined to be designed on the basis of a grid concept that lends it to the two way curve form that it takes.

The intention of the warp form is to act as an outer layer of the building envelope that reduces heat ingress and not daylight hence minimizing load on air-conditioning. This form when compared to the normal box building is quite imposing but not unwieldy at the same time is more.