Steeling the show

In the forested mountains near the Myanmar-Thailand border sits a Buddhist temple made entirely of stainless steel, in a combination of traditional Buddhist architecture and modern imagination. The builder chose stainless steel because he said it would last "a thousand years".

Lloyds Building, built in 1984 in the heart of London, with a glistening 30,000 tonnes of stainless steel and glass, is widely regarded as a modern-day design marvel. And way back in 1929, stainless steel rose (literally) to its greatest heights when William Van Alen chose it for the Chrysler Building in New York. His stainless steel claddings are now permanent features of the city's skyline.

The likelihood of us, in India, soon witnessing an architectural wonder in stainless steel becomes more and more likely. You may or may not be a fan of its steely cold surfaces and unnatural perfection, but from high-profile buildings to unseen masonry anchors and gleaming bus shelters down to the lowly garbage bin, stainless steel is surfacing across cities in India.

The use of stainless steel until the late-90s was largely invisible "" in sectors like transport and processing industries. The only visible everyday association it enjoyed was in the form of old-faithful kitchen utensils. Then, thanks to innovators like Arun Garg, CEO, Magpie, and later Jindal's product brand Art D'Inox, stainless steel took on the form of stylish lifestyle products.

Says Garg of Magpie's journey from just a hot-rolling steel plant to designing "steel art", "When we started selling our lifestyle products in the domestic market in October 2000 (until then they only exported), very few people could conceive of stainless steel in modern avatars. I believe we helped glamourise it." But as much as lifestyle products changed the perception of stainless steel, according to Ramesh Gopal, executive director, ISSDA (Indian Stainless Steel Development Association), "they account for a negligible fraction of total stainless steel consumption".

And so, while lifestyle only adds high visibility and consumption in process, transport and engineering industries stay more or less constant, the attention of steel manufacturers is turning to the ABC (architecture, building and construction) segment, which represents the maximum growth potential. Jindal Stainless, domestic market leaders, formed their ARC division four years ago, to provide stainless steel products and technology solutions to cater to this segment.

Says P K Gupta, president and CEO, Jindal Stainless ARC Division, "Quality standards in construction in India are changing, and people are realising that thanks to the high durability and resale value of stainless steel, it's tremendous value for money." Gopal adds, "Our projection is that consumption levels of stainless steel in the construction segment, currently 2 per cent, will reach 12 per cent by 2015."

Bobby Mukherjee, a prominent Mumbai-based architect, who used stainless steel for key architectural features in his revamp of Le Meridien in Delhi, says, "Stainless steel is huge abroad; it's been used since the Art-Deco period on crowns of buildings, lift doors and external cladding. It is starting to pick up here in the form of staircases, balustrades and banisters, and mostly in architectural hardware. If a project uses a lot of glass, you will typically use a lot of stainless steel, because it holds the glass together in interesting ways and the materials complement each other. Stainless steel is the look of the future."

J K Chabra, vice president, Shapoorji Pallonji Construction, agrees. "Our usage of stainless steel has grown by about 25-30 per cent over the last five years," he says, "especially in the malls and departmental store projects." Gupta indicates that the future of stainless steel consumption lies in (food and petrol) retail, IT parks and new airport projects, and together they will account for an annual consumption of up to 60,000 tonnes by 2007.

It's not just the malls, stainless steel is also making its appearance on city streets. Benches, bus shelters and dustbins in stainless steel are proliferating in Delhi and Mumbai. Says Gupta, "Street furniture in stainless steel is extremely popular in Europe and South-east Asia right now. It is the ideal segment to extend into because that's one usage that requires great durability and easy maintenance, two intrinsic qualities of stainless steel."

So why the sudden interest in stainless steel? "For one," says Gopal, "we were late starters; we didn't have the technologies available to exploit the material until the '90s. Today there are over 100 grades of stainless steel, each designed for a specific need."

According to Chabra, "Clients, unlike a decade or two ago, are very keen to make a statement through their buildings; and statement buildings will tend to use a lot of stainless steel and glass." Architect Mohit Gujral adds, "It appeals to modern day aesthetics. There are cheaper, equally timeless materials like stone and glass, but these materials might soon hold less and less meaning as people's tastes change." Adds Chabra, "Besides its aesthetic quality, stainless steel is low maintenance, high in strength and ductility, and highly corrosion-resistant."

And then there is the issue of energy efficiency. Says Gopal, "In use, stainless steel is extremely environmentally friendly. It doesn't need painting. There is barely any loss of matter with time; aluminium wears thin, and when iron oxidises it pollutes the air. But most importantly, almost all of it is available for re-use."

But with construction projects in India still being largely "brick and mortar" projects according to Mohit Gujral, cost-efficiency is always top priority over energy-efficiency and, sadly, even over shelf-life. Says Gujral, "Because of the cost factor, stainless steel is used more as a visual highlighter, on edges of buildings, fountains, lobbies and atriums, than as a fundamental building material."

Ramesh Gopal sees it differently, "When properly designed and fabricated, a stainless steel product may cost about 2.5 times that of carbon steel. But for other materials there are many hidden costs, like painting, or various forms of corrosion protection."

Cost notwithstanding, consumption in this sector is expected to grow by 25 per cent in the next five years. And Gujral believes that as economies of scale get more favourable and buildings evolve to become both timeless and more aspirational, stainless steel will finally boom.

(Kitchen utensils, meanwhile, will get a bit of a break; use of stainless steel for utensils will fall by a third by 2015.)