The Communique Marketing Solutions office at Gurugram, creates a modern and egalitarian workspace in an effort to foster creativity, collaboration, and conversation. Its spatial planning emerges as a direct result of this intent: where, an open-plan office format is chosen that is symbolic of transparency. Disregarding traditional notions of professional hierarchy, this configuration instead encourage democratic engagement within the workforce. The architectural design, as a result, reflects the company’s guiding philosophy, which is predicated on establishing parity across the board to enhance employee experience, productivity, and well-being.
The office is designed as a three-storeyed building that crafts a distinctive identity for itself within its immediate urban context. The architectural vocabulary is unmistakably brutalist: the facades are an expanse of exposed concrete punctuated by the measured use of corten steel. Honesty–structural and material–and humanism are central to the idea of Brutalism; its choice, therefore, reflects group DCA’s strong belief in the movement’s foundational principles of modernism and socialism.
PROJECT FACT FILE
Typology: Commercial
Type (Architectural/Interior): Architectural & interior
Name of Project: Office for Communiqué Marketing Solutions
Location: Udyog Vihar, Gurugram
Name of Client: Tarun Agarwal
Name of Client’s Firm: Communique Marketing Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Principal Architects: Amit Aurora
Design Team: Vini Sam, Sandeep
Site Area: 450 sq. m
Built-Up Area: 1475 sq. m
Total Floor Area: 1260 sq. m
Start Date: January, 2017
Completion Date: April, 2018
Photographer: Andre J Fanthome
General contractor: DCA Workshop
On the ground floor, a short porch–at the end of which stands a custom-designed sculpture, leads the visitors to the entrance foyer. The upper floors house the workspaces within a two-floor volume. In order to optimize penetration of glare-free daylight into this volume, its northern and southern edges are designed to be porous; the fenestration scheme was arrived at through a metric-based daylight analysis. To reduce the ingress of heat into the building, the western edge–which forms its primary façade–is completely blocked with a massive wall and an added layer of insulation.
The highlight of the volume, however, is a mezzanine conference room that floats above an amphitheater-style, multipurpose event area. The fact that the heart of the volume is occupied by collaborative and flexible spaces as opposed to a director’s room reflects group DCA’s intent to do away with physical metaphors of authoritarianism.
The larger design strategy–biophilia–endeavors to enhance human engagement with nature in order to craft working spaces that promote happiness, good health, and well-being: ‘by facilitating the elements of air, of light, and of the greens,’ as expressed in group DCA’s core values. Large windows, lined with planters, are designed along the northern and southern edges of the floor-plates; they open to beautiful views of the surrounding greens, while their careful placement and sizing ensures adequate daylight ingress.
In addition, vertical green walls run along the entire two-floor length of the volume along its eastern and western edges, and treated fresh air is brought in to improve indoor air quality. This strategy ties in with the attempt to optimize the building’s thermal performance as well. In order to ensure reduction in the building’s energy consumption and its use of resources, a thoughtful, scientific approach is adopted. All of the windows are double-glazed, while glass wool is used as an insulating material on the western façade. Acoustical treatments–polyfibre wall and ceiling panels–were integrated within the design from the very beginning of the process to reduce indoor noise levels. The use of modern technology extends to artificial lighting design as well, where a simple yet intelligent system is chosen to augment natural daylight, creating optimal working conditions throughout the day.
The interior spaces are a celebration of brutal materiality. The wall and ceiling surfaces–concrete, brick, and corten steel–are left exposed in their natural, unfinished states. The furniture is carved out of birch plywood, while the flooring is largely done in locally procured, multi-hued limestone. The air-conditioning ducts take on a sculpturesque quality; left unconcealed, they seem to float in mid-air, adding to the raw and industrial look of the space. These material choices help bring down maintenance costs significantly, while simultaneously enhancing user experience of the spaces.
CONSULTANTS
Structural: S.V.Damle
Electrical: Design Matrix
HVAC: Weather Comfort
Plumbing: D.S. Rawat
Furniture: DCA Architects
Lighting: Design matrix
Façade: DCA Architects
PRODUCTS / VENDORS
Lighting : iGuzzini (Recessed Laser Blade Lighting)
Trilux (Suspended lights over workstations)
Corten Steel: AV Aquafloat Glazings Pvt Ltd
Aluminum Windows: AV Aquafloat Glazings Pvt Ltd
Hardware: Geisse
Aluminum Frames: Royal Arch Solutions
Glass: Saint Gobain
Sanitary ware / Fittings: Fixtures- Jaquar, Sanitary wares- Kohler
Flooring: Local stone from Andhra Pradesh, India
Furnishing: Chairs are by Steelcase. Everything else is bespoke and customised by DCA Workshop
Air Conditioning: Weather Comfort, Toshiba
Paint: Asian Paints
Elevator: Schindler