By design

Corporate buildings can be much more than just visible symbols of a company's might. A well-designed office structure can also help in resolving critical business issues.

Commercial building design isn't just about aesthetics. More and more companies are realising that their corporate headquarters need not just look swanky or be another investment in brand "building".

In fact, well designed office structures also solve business issues like security of assets, improving employee morale, curbing costs like electricity or even generating interest of prospective employees in the company.

At the recently held Designing Corporate Cultures (DCC) awards, instituted by the industry magazine Indian Architect and Builder, commercial buildings where architecture and design are used in the interest of a company were recognised.

The Strategist presents three of these award-winning buildings as case studies.

The jewel in SEEPZ's crown

A stuffy, dimly-lit passage in a central Mumbai industrial estate leads you to the office of Contemporary Urban. Despite such uninspiring settings, this architect's firm is considered a "hot" (pun not intended) workplace.

The reason for Contemporary Urban's brush with fame is not a difficult guess.

Two of the firm's projects won recognition at the recently-held DCC awards. One of these projects was for Jewel Tech, a jewellery manufacturer in Mumbai's western suburbs.

Jewel Tech wanted a glitzy 35,000 sq ft headquarters that would house both its manufacturing and administrative functions. But the objective behind building the new headquarters was not to just impress foreign clients.

"The business of jewellery manufacturing in the sub-continent revolves around the fear of theft," points out Kapil Gupta, design principal, Contemporary Urban. So the brief to the architects was to have as small and few openings as possible.

This would help maintain a high level of security on the exterior of the building.

Located in SEEPZ, the export promotion hub in Mumbai's western suburbs, Jewel Tech was not the only jewellery manufacturer in that zone. But it wanted to stand out of the crowd.

But the specification of a jewellery factory is similar to that of a prison. And security was extremely tight "" so much so that employees had to go through an almost undignified level of checking. The surveillance systems were omnipresent since the company wanted access to every nook and cranny through hidden security cameras.

Jewel Tech needed to drive home to its employees that they were under watch constantly. The flip side: a sense that the company didn't trust its employees, which in turn disturbed employee morale.

To bring down the number of security interventions, Contemporary Urban designed the building in such a way that there were no blind spots in the entire factory.

This reduced security guard requirements by a quarter. Then, to make the building visually inaccessible from the exterior, the exterior was dressed up in black aluminium composite panels.

But 25 per cent of the facade was glazed, to let light into the building. At the same time, large windows were a no-no, since they would be a security hazard. So, the glazing area was divided into strips 30 cm x 240 cm wide.

This also complemented the size of the composite aluminium panels. The result was that the building became virtually opaque to passers-by. But it didn't stop employees from looking out.

Then, instead of adopting the typical stacked plan (administration and manufacturing in the same building one above the other) that most jewellery manufacturing units follow, the architects decided to make separate buildings for administration and production, placed side by side.

The space in between the administrative mass and the production mass was used to create what the architects term a "surveillance void". Everyone entering or leaving the building had to pass through this area, thus allowing a thorough check on human traffic.

Anybody passing through the void can be seen from either building, which creates the sensation of an implied gaze.

To heighten the impression of "being watched", the staircases in the void were constructed out of metal sheets and hung with cables, so that footsteps echoed and were heard all over the void.

At the same time, since the roof of the void is open "" allowing a glimpse of the sky "" the void also became a relief space for the employees who are constantly under surveillance.

Refined ideas

While Jewel Tech won top honours for shining like a black jewel in the category "design that connects", the Kerala-based, Kochi Refineries was a runner-up in the same category for diametrically opposite reasons.

Designed by Christopher Charles Benninger of Christopher Charles Benninger Architects, Kochi Refineries bagged the award for "not trying to be fancy and a building that suits the context of the local environment and meets the needs of the user," according to the awards jury.

Until 2001, Kochi Refineries was just another public enterprise located in a dreary administrative building inside the refinery with a management dominated by a hierarchy of engineers.

Visitors to the administrative offices found the trip to the refinery cumbersome and bogged down with security procedures. That's when the board of Kochi Refineries decided to shift to a new location in the heart of Ernakulam's business district, creating a new, business-friendly corporate culture in the process.

To begin with, new divisions like marketing, joint ventures, human resources and industry analysis needed to be allotted space. At the same time, the new corporate culture looked at tearing down walls and make everyone symbolically part of the same space.

To ensure this happened, the administrative building of Kochi Refineries was designed in a way that the centre of the structure had a concrete column and housed the elevators from which tree-like beams radiated out to peripheral columns, leaving the entire interior column free.

Then, as work areas were placed near the glass-louvred walls and overlooked the atrium, openness was woven into the design.

But Kochi Refineries did not aspire to look like a North Atlantic glass box, which was the current architectural trend in most commercial buildings. So Benninger borrowed ideas from traditional Kerala architecture.

For instance, in Kerala's hot, humid weather, traditional buildings use wood louvres to control temperature and encourage cross-ventilation. These traditional louvres held the key to long term cost reduction in terms of cooling as well as reducing emissions.

But instead of wood, the architects used aluminium louvres to cover the building, since aluminium is easily available. The louvres acted like an umbrella and protected the interiors from heat.

Even the shape of the building was used to maximum advantage. The circular design ensured that the average distance to natural light from all work points was closer than any with other configuration.

The energy producer company was enthused enough by the new design to make out a conscience statement to its employees stressing its desire to be energy efficient.

Even in tangible terms the expenses on cooling came down by 30 per cent compared to the earlier facility.

Initial fears that the aluminium louvres would block light were put to rest when the employees decided by consensus that at specific times, the air-conditioning would be shut off and the windows would be opened up to the sea breeze.

However the most unexpected benefit is that, three years after its new headquarters has been functional, job applications at Kochi Refineries have quadrupled.

The greenhouse effect

For the Gujarat-based Torrent Research Centre, there was no favourable sea-front location; instead, the research and development facility is located on the Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar highway.

However, the eight-year-old facility has still managed to cut electricity costs by Rs 60 lakh by improving its utilisation of air-conditioning and artificial lighting.

Then, despite having incurred an expense of Rs 12.55 crore on cumulative capital costs of the civil works and the AC plant "" Rs 50 lakh more than the conventionally designed buildings "" the company targets achieving pay back within 14 years of operation.

According to the architect firm, Abhikram, the Torrent facility stood apart from the rest on three counts. First it saved up to 220 KVA energy every year. Then, the passive airconditioning system that was installed ensured that air circulated was fresh and not recirculated. Finally, the building could give a return on investment.

The brief from Torrent to Abhikram was to accomodate all the laboratory, administrative and support activities with adequate space, light, ventilation, utilities and services, with a free and undisturbed circulation within them.

Also the architects had to provide an atmosphere conducive to concentration and yet encourage interactive processes through the creation of meeting spaces.

For starters, Abhikram minimised the use of artificial lights through strategic placement of open windows. But the openings had to be positioned in such a way that they would let in only light and not heat into the building.

So the windows were made to face either north or south, since the light in these directions was even and the heat, not harsh.

In particular, the laboratory spaces needed adequate light. Here the architects maximised the use of consistent natural light from the northern direction, while facilities like administration were pushed to other directions.

Three openings measuring 45 cm x 180 cm were created in the ceilings to let in the light near the labs. The insides were painted with enamel paint to reflect the light to the lower levels.

To bring down the use of the conventional air-conditioning system by as much as 75 per cent, the architects introduced the Passive Down-Draft Evaporation Cooling System (PDEC).

The PDEC system ensures a continuous supply of fresh air allowing for adequate air changes without resorting to any mechanical means, while simultaneously maintaining maximum dust control.

The PDEC system functioned on three pumps of 5 HP each. Thus the air-conditioning plant capacity saved was to the extent of 200 mega tonnes. As the PDEC ensured six to nine air changes a hour, it reduced the temperature fluctuations within the building and also got in fresh air.

The Torrent effort won the first prize in its category of "City'zen "" corporates with a design commitment".

Companies have often regarded design as a science, when it comes to brands or corporate colours. But, as an architect quips, "State-of-the-art is not just about technology, but also design."