A building with character

Sushmita Choudhary and Ravi Teja Sharma visit a software services company and are impressed by the building's unique design.

From the outside, the new Headstrong facility is just the sole decent building along a long row of very typical "" read sad looking "" buildings in NOIDA's Sector 59. Walk in and the perception changes completely.

Harsh Singh Lohit, managing director of this software services company, puts it aptly: "The building is not just a space to house employees and conduct business. It needs to have a soul and that's something very few people take cognition of."

According to him, this facility is not just for the employees but for the customers as well. "It is designed to catch the eye of the customers and make a strong first impression," he explains.

"If we want to tell our customers that we are a Rs 1,000 crore company offering world-class software services, then we should look like a Rs 1,000 crore company housed in a world-class building."

"It was a brownfield project for us. We bought the shell of the building from a builder and then worked on it," says Lohit. So it might pale in comparison to a large sprawling campus of an IT company, but only in terms of scale, not innovative design. It seems like considerable work has gone into making this building work for them.

What sets this office apart from a zillion other modern glass and steel buildings is the way its architecture and design has been moulded to project Headstrong's ideology and work ethics. "Our core values are openness, teamwork, excellence and leadership and that's exactly what our building reflects," says Lohit.

Take openness, for instance. To reflect this principle the architect decided to create multiple veils of transparency "" sitting in the lobby you can look inside the employee area; on the first floor, as you walk past the board room (a huge flat screen TV is mounted right by the door listing the names of the clients that Lohit will meet later in the afternoon), you can look into the offices of the bosses too.

Furthermore, the entire front facade is a glass sheet which makes the immediate interiors a space where sunlight plays all day long. The teamwork aspect comes through loud and clear in the "cohesiveness" of the entire structure "" every single item, every wall, every corridor exists for a definite purpose.

In the chain of activities spanning over nine months and costing Rs 70 crore, Lohit got in touch with a design agency, an architect and an experienced project management team.

"We wanted someone who had done more than a few big IT facilities (1,500 seats or more) and also a person who could commit personal time for the project," says Lohit. The company roped in design agency Tony Lopez along with architect Sanjay Wadhwa, and Cushman & Wakefield for project management.

A major highlight of Headstrong is the huge indoor piazza with lots of plants. The architect created an atrium bathed in sunlight from an overhead skylight, dividing the entire building in half. This is where employees gather for coffee and conversation or to read the newspapers or even comics.

And while Headstrong does appear different, some might think of the "rustic Indian look" as too interfering, too incongruous and too casual. We are talking about the "haveli" look that the company has selected for its cafeteria, complete with a cow/horse cart, landscape paintings and hookahs! And a well and wall paintings depicting lush fields.

Lohit defends: "We wanted to give our international clients a feel of rural India and through this look we've achieved our goal."

It is the overall design of the building that gives it that edge. The Headstrong icon, a figure with four heads, is played up in different ways across the building. A flying Superman on the door to the CEO's cabin, a turban wearing figure performing the Indian rope trick on the MD's door... all reinforce a funky look.

There are fish tanks on every floor, funky wall graffiti quoting movie stars, movies and poets, detailed floor plans alongside each entry point, giant vases and posters scattered around, a state-of-the-art gym, even a creche area, besides an ATM machine and a store housing food and other items.

And though not everyone might find the building's design too different, ultimately employees and clients are always in a mood to return to the cheerful space that Headstrong has created.