Amalgam of Nature & Culture!

In a quest to get my license from Council of Architecture I along with my usual two friends visited Indian Habitat Centre! Since I have never been there and saw a post from one of my friend @sahiba-rana on IHC made me curious to visit there and witness the design. It was vacant due to pandemic which bought a little comfort as I could roam freely and observe the built structure.

The Council Of Architecture's 'only' office lies in the central Delhi's Indian Habitat Centre. Collecting our super delayed documentations and going over the office to verify them was a tedious process indeed. The officers were very helpful, three of us were confused on what to submit since two of us forgot our one or the another documentation but at end we all got verified and will receive our due license within 15 days of time span.

After the work we had plans to eat at one of the luxurious restaurants within IHC but every restaurant was closed, It was sad since having lunch over there was one of the top priority of the day.

Anyways, the stroll of the complex was worthy and so was the compromised lunch over 10 km from the complex in Connaught Palace.

Some places just gives a joyful experience on how they are built so did this complex. Come along for a virtual tour, let me divide this tour into two sections -
Nature's bliss within landscaping
Culture within Structure
I feel like whenever you get chance to visit there you'll always appreciate the things more when you have already read about them.
In the year 1993 , before I was even born. Architect Joseph Allen Stein along with his superb team made their largest project's concept into reality. It obviously is a habitat centre with offices, restaurants, convention centre and atrium.

Bringing my perspective into limelight , let's have a tour of-

Nature's bliss within landscaping

Are we in some tropical forest? I asked one of my friend. We all were fascinated by the maintenance of the landscaping that was conceptualise to cover 9 acers of land along with built structure.

Basically Delhi's topography is flat with minor contours here and there. IHC have major contours to it's plan. each contour bought a beautiful piece of landscaping.

Wondering why did they planned multiple pathways to reach the same building. Exploring them bought an answer as each pathways leads to an entrance to the sections of the building block. moreover somehow central landscaping having multiple pathways brings in the excitement as to which one to choose. It's always a bliss to walk between pathways covered with plantations as it's very rare to find such in metropolitan city like Delhi.

That's one of the entry gate. Can you see what structure or road is present outside the gat? No! That's the magic of having large trees on the periphery of the complex!
The little plants and trees composing of inside landscape makes the space looks wider.
Having larger one surrounded on the periphery brings in different best aspects. Number one is the view. Number two is noise cancelation, Number three is less pollution from outside entering inside. Number four is nice shade inside and outside.

And all those good aspects of trees we learnt during schooling. The main gat had two entrances and two pathways leading to basement parking and direct building blocks.

Different kind of plants which could grow in the environment of the city are placed here. considering the planters being painted red and green which were in contrast with red brick work façade.

As soon as we entered the complex, the buildings were divided into blocks and different kind of landscaping was deployed to different section of blocks. The first section had few of brick planters along with long deciduous trees and less leaves allows the structure to be visible with presence of nature.

This allows the more space for structure and covers lesser area. This kind of landscaping is best suitable within this section of block!

The brick planters had seating spaces as well.

The involvement of Water Bodies was essential so along with beautiful sculpture these kind of water bodies were spread across the complex.

Apart from water bodies which do help maintain the temperature of the suburb, There were different kind of landscaping in different sections as well.
Actually this wasn't the season for flowers so mostly green plants were visible but during season everything is so colourful with different flowers blossoming out there.

We rested there for a while till the time @sahiba-rana went out and about asking if the café was open but it wasn't actually!

This was way towards the convention centre which has been closed as I told due to pandemic. only offices with utmost importance were open because of which we can see no crowd which is unusual as guards told.

This is the section of landscaping towards another gate of entrance and it had the most nicest seating just beneath the planters. There was a water fountain in this section but it wasn't operating.

Did I forgot to mention that there were plenty of ramps actually everywhere wherever there are staircases. I was astonished as they considered everything possible for specially abled people. including lifts and all.

Let's move ahead with-

Culture within Structure

The structure is the one that makes this complex the best habitat centre in the state. Having 5 building blocks which are connected by aerial walkways as well as the beautiful landscapes with alleys , staircases and ramps.

As I earlier explained that there are different sections fields here like restaurants, offices, convention centre but there's so much more to it as a large9 acre land has lot to offer.
Let's evaluate the design functions as seen from outside of the complex.

Shading
As observed all the courtyard's roof are covered by sun shade device which helps control heat during summers and produce such a nice pattern of shade.

These are angular blue coloured reflectors or I might say sun shade devices which were fixed in a steel frame and connected end to end. They indeed provide a nice coverage and shade with beautiful patterns all around.

Ribbon Windows
As seen from the actual façade the buildings are quite airy with abundance of natural light and ventilation which was all possible due to presence of horizontal and vertical windows in a ribbon form.
Placing windows in haphazard ways with different shape and size would have not bought an impact of unity as every block as such ribbon windows it just unites the exterior.

In order to not make ribbon style monotonous, every block had same basic style but with alterations such as vivid colors, different placement of planters beneath every window and changes into shape.

Not just horizontal strips but vertical strips were also the part of façade of different building blocks, Considering the ongoing conditions we were not allowed to be inside any building except the C.O.A. one and photography wasn't allowed within the workspace so we obeyed the rules.

The fascination prevails as horizontal strips of glazed windows.

Cladding

Talking about cladding red coloured brickwork is quite evident by now but the presence of mosaic tiles and few colours paint plus the sandstone completes the essence of materials.

Little close up of ne of the building's entrances.

Convention Centre

The convention centre had auditoriums, exhibition centre, mini office spaces, hotel, library, restaurant, banquet halls and what not!
The exterior is amazing and it had it's own entry. Since interior section was closed I could capture only the exterior. But there's a garden including a beautiful gazebo where occasional dinner parties are held in open.

One can assume how beautiful it would look during night with all those lightings and the inclusion of wood makes the gazebo complete somehow!

The inclusion of concrete frame work makes it interesting, little worn out part was not interesting to look at hopefully it may get restored.
Let's end this segment with some-

Sculptures and entrances

Different mosaic tiles cladding and stone with brick work made this look really attractive. There were more than 15 entrances, mostly different from one another.

Did I mentioned about the solar power and rainwater harvesting plant set up inside the complex in order to make light and irrigation used with renewable sources.

There were such simplistic entrances too. I wish I could show more of them but This publication is already lengthy and inclusion of more will make it super hard to read it once and most of my friends here would skip to the bottom.

But zest here is clear as to how different entrances plays a vital role here.

The beautiful sculptures were the artistic part of the complex. showcasing vivid artists.

These sculptures were created by artists whose details were all mentioned by the signature board as mentioned above in pictures.
To be honest I thought that this piece is a fossil but was shocked to read that this was artistic piece made on ceramic by Ray Meaker.

Such aspects add artistic value to the complex and makes it more beautiful.

Crux
The overall experience was wonderful The birdies chirping due to presence of tropical rainforest alike landscape , much open courtyards and beautiful textures and hospitality as guards and other workers over there were quite polite and helpful.

So, have you ever been to such a built environment where everything seems beautiful and interesting?

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All the pictures belongs to me.