d+a | Issue 115 • Apr/May 2020

/ COMMERCIAL / 32 expensive, it was important for us to make sure that the retail floors were highly visible.” To this end, Puri designed the building to accommodate as many retail spaces as possible. He also created direct entry to these spaces from the road. A long and wide footpath flanks the road-facing north side of the building, ensuring that pedestrians have a clear view of the shop-fronts. “People in small cities such as this one prefer road-facing shops with high visibility, so we had to get this aspect of the brief right,” Puri says. ORIGAMI-INSPIRED DESIGN Linear buildings can look boring, but not this one. Puri added small open terraces for some of the offices at the upper levels, thereby fragmenting the linearity of the property while creating volume to what might have otherwise been a one- dimensional, “flat” structure. To further break up the building’s linearity, as well as fashion a unique identity and a clearly discernible office space for the developer, Puri created a completely different sculptural volume, inspired by origami. “Nestled within an open north-oriented terrace, this sculptural office space is set back from the road junction and made with rust-red, solid aluminium sheets to become a focal point of the building.” The design team used three different muted, stone-textured “Neolith” slabs as cladding on the façade of the building, to ABOVE. The rust-red, sculptural office space helps break up the linearity of the property.