New Icons Of Identity

Welcome to the workplace of the third millennium. And in the emerging work patterns of the new decade, the design of a workplace is now changing by a number of additional elements. Rapid technological developments, increasingly complex and expensive environmental concerns, flexibility to accommodate reconfigured work teams, employee concerns (ergonomics, ambience, mood and motivating spaces), customers demanding more services, changing work methods are some of the new challenges in designing the NEW office. Walls are being pulled down, hierarchies being redefined and a comfort level which spawns performance as well as customer satisfaction is the most sought-after feature in office design today.

A perfect example of the new touchstone of corporate design are the offices of Interglobe, United Airlines and Galileo in Gurgaon near Delhi. Housed within a three-storeyed self-contained glass facaded building, the sophisticated interiors designed by Japanese specialist Shirley Fujikawa with project management by TCG Developments, a Delhi-based firm working in conjunction with UrbaCon Developments, UK, reflects the vision of the 21st century global workforce and culture, an environment as efficient as it is empathetic.

Working with the three-pronged principle of flight, travel and space, a central open plan area is the pivot on which the entire interiors rest. With low partitioned workstations dominating the centre, elegant glass and wood screens separate the managers'rooms located on two sides, the glass extending the view in one clean sweep even while maintaining that need for sound privacy and conferencing. A powerful statement of accountability and teamwork because managers are visible and approachable and there are no intimidating divisions which scream hierarchy or subservience. The central workstations are also slightly elevated so that employees too are visible to the managers on both sides.

The design concept totally reflects their corporate identity of no clutter, no fuss—there are no paintings on the walls or flowers—the entire area exuding a feeling of efficiency, professionalism, in keeping with the informal yet functional work culture of the organisation.

The corporate identity paradigm beginning right from the workplace is gaining ground. As Sudhir Sharma of the Pune-based Elephant Design puts it: "The office itself should be like a visiting card." A concept that design companies like Circus Design of Mumbai, a multidisciplinary design studio, and Elephant Design are hoping to establish as a given in the realm of office design. Ajay Shah of Circus Design explains how he has worked on this principle to create the interiors for the Mudra Advertising offices in Mumbai and Interact Vision advertising in Ahmedabad. Says he: "Both Interact Vision and Mudra are in the core business of communication.Communication is put to effect through various ingredients—colour, text, typography and pictures (illustrations, moving pictures, films etc).In turn, the offices of such businesses also need to communicate messages through signs, symbols and icons of everyday life to visiting clients."

 But, as he explains, the tools of translating communication into spaces are not just literal. A mix of materials, finishes, textures, forms, lighting techniques and exposed detailing of functional elements all work towards imparting a sensory (visual and tactile) treat to both the employee as well as the client.

Innovation is another key aspect to designing spaces. Material explorations also assist in 'breaking the moulds'of a typical looking interior. In short, in a business which caters to a clientele clamouring for new ideas every moment, the message should be: we dare, if you dare and we do it differently each time.

A quick look into the key work areas of Interact Vision and Mudra reinforces the concepts Shah works with. At Mudra, all workstations were designed for teams. Each workstation has an overhead storage unit. The eye-shaped graphic (in red on the tables and black on the storage units) defines functions: red signifies client servicing and green specifies accounts. The office within has suspended light canopy structures, an open AC duct with graphics of the '50s, sprawled letters in China mosaic on the flooring and functional furniture.

Elephant Design has also taken the Corporate Identity path to redefine and redesign some of their best interiors like for Bajaj Auto retailers. A five-member team—Ashwini and Ashish Deshpande, Sudhir and Gargi Sharma and Partho Guha—of product designers, graphic designers communicative spaces. Says Sharma: "We have worked out systems for design and implementation of retail chain design. Today it is possible to revamp a whole network of 300 or more outlets within a year, complete with a new identity and visual culture."

For long Bajaj was seen as a showroom where you walk in only to buy. The place did not add to convenience nor did it make you aware of the lineage of the product. Aseparate retail identity gives the company leverage for marketing its products more dynamically. Brand extensions become simpler without necessitating changes in corporate structure. The new Bajaj Showroom houses a touchscreen computer terminal. Elephant sees this as the future of retail in bigger cities and town. Elephant feels that this technology will work towards making interiors more interactive.

Another young company which is making a mark in the design of office interiors is the Delhi-based Sanna Turnkey Interior Designers and Decorators. The company recently designed the new office for Ciba in Delhi. Timeframe being the essence of the contract as well, the whole office of 3,500 sq ft was conceived, planned and executed within eight weeks. To allow for light to filter through and create a more stimulating environment, partitions are all in glass, etched for privacy and style and more eco-friendliness. The furniture is modular in nature, unconventional but user-friendly.

Consistent with the nature of Ciba's operation, the offices are based on a self-service principle, hence fully equipped. In brief, a clean modern office interior with lots of natural light and air of uncluttered, efficient functionality all merging together perfectly to create a workspace with enhanced productivity.

But each corporate image and philosophy again is different from the other and for it to be reflected in the interiors the corporate's business needs to be kept in mind. This is well explained by Sunita Kohli, winner of the Padma Shri for design, when she says that her instinctive reaction when asked to design the 9th floor corporate offices of the DLF Centre on Delhi's Parliament Street was that DLF, as a land development company, has not only extended the boundaries of New Delhi, it has also done it well.The offices command a spectacular view overlooking the seven yantras of the Jantar Mantar. In the distance, one can also see the sandstone dome of Lutyens'Rashtrapati Bhavan and the gilded dome of Gurdwara Bangla Sahib.

 Therefore, the architecture of the interior, as she says, is articulated as a version of classical Palladianism, expressing a way of life and a humanist moral philosophy. And so, for the interior architecture of these spaces—the lobbies, offices, conference rooms, the rotunda and the interconnecting circulation area—she decided to base the concepts not on the architecture of colonial New Delhi but on the sources of architecture that created classical New Delhi. The emphasis then in these interiors has been on the interior architectural structure. Her belief: that an interior must be able to establish its concepts and its quality on its own structure, that is without any furniture, soft furnishings, carpets and art work. These, according to her, come later.

To illustrate her point: within the shell of the double-height main reception lobby, plain white walls are contrasted with strong ornamental entrances with beige stone surrounds. A freestanding stone surround in front of the exterior glass curtain wall has been used to disassociate the interior architecture from the exterior. The opposite wall has a double storeyed elevation to establish a discreet and refined monumentality in the interiors. Beige Italian marble dominates the flooring with deep green Udaipur marble used in the borders to give strength to the central motif. The central motif is the architectural floor plan of the erstwhile threatened Chattri of Lutyens. The barrel vaulted ceiling has a brilliant painting symbolising the eight cities of Delhi, the theme an extension of the overall concept—a tribute to Lutyens'brilliance as an architect and an acknowledgement of DLF's contribution towards redrawing the boundaries of Delhi. The identity as builder and architect of an evergrowing metro had been subtly established.

Offices are also becoming increasingly environment-friendly. Aprime example of this is the Torrent Pharmaceuticals Research Centre in Ahmedabad designed by Parul Zaveri and Nimish Patel of Abhikram consultants. For one of the research centres of Torrent, Parul and Nimish used the passive cooling system, a large-scale experiment, perhaps the first in the country, and a major step towards energy conservation. The resultant spaces offered a climatically sealed environment with only designated inlets and outlets of air, which through their complex but simulated in-depth researched configuration generated the required movement of air in different spaces without using any mechanical or electrical energy. Afine spray of water is used to cool the air at the point of entry.

The building is insulated with a natural mineral instead of chemically incongruent materials. Acollaborative effort with Brian Ford Associates, tests carried out last summer established that: the inside temperature remained at 29° C when the outside ambient shade temperature was 43°C without the use of any mechanical device except a small motor for a thin spray of water. Consequently it was projected that for the entire project about 200 m tons of airconditioning plant was avoided through use of passive evaporative cooling draught