Mumbai's Cybertecture Egg

India has been on world architecture news for a while now. Antilla has hardly left the headlines,  Cybertecture Egg has already taken a place on top.

Talk of intelligent design- this building will surpass all that fall in this category. You will see it built by 2010.

The concept. The concept was inspired by considering the world as an ecosystem allowing life to evolve. Elements of the design and intelligence systems will work together to give the building’s inhabitants the ‘best space to work in’.

The design. The 32,000 sq m egg-shaped building will accommodate 13 floors of offices bringing together “iconic architecture, environmental design, intelligent systems, and new engineering to create an awe-inspiring landmark in the city.”

Within the building, there will be a series of innovative systems such as ‘cybertecture health’ which is designed to keep track of the inhabitant’s health including blood pressure and weight. The data collected may be retrieved and sent to a doctor if deemed necessary.

Cybertecture Egg: Closer Look

You do not like the view from your window? Well, in this building you can customize your favorite view and have real time scenery from all around the world instead of the view you currently have. Technology and the working environment are united in the use of ‘cybertecture reality’ which allows you to do this.

It is green. The egg itself is orientated and skewed at an angle to create both a strong visual language and to alleviate the solar gain of the building, also there is a sky garden on the top of building which performs thermolysis (the dissipation of heat from the surface). PV panels will be installed on top of the building and a wind turbine on the sky gardens will generate electricity. A water filtration system will also be incorporated into the building to recycle grey water for flushing and irrigation purpose.

James Law Cybertecture International, commissioned by Vijay Associate (Wadhwa Developers) to create an office unlike any other in India, comments, “In the 21st Century, buildings will be different from 20th Century. They are no longer about concrete, steel and glass, but also the new intangible materials of technology, multimedia, intelligence and interactivity. Only recognizing this will bring a new form of architecture to light, namely a Cybertecture.”

Cybertecture Egg: Interior View

Why an egg? By using this “Egg” shape, compared to a conventional building, the structure has approximately 10-20% less surface area. Within the building, an innovative structure derived from the skin of the egg creates up to 30m spans of column less floors. The architecture is sleek and computer designed, with engineering that creates a building of high quality and geometric sophistication.

The next big thing. Cybertecture egg is indeed a futuristic building where technology and life embrace each other to help live a quality life. Man has come a long way after leaving the caves. Today, with technology encomapssing our lives, design knows no bounds. Cybertecture egg IS the next big thing.

Photo Credit: James Law Cybertecture Internationala

To everyone’s surprise, price tagged at $ 2 Billion, Antilla (named after the mythical island) is in India and is world’s first billion dollar home. Indeed, like its name, it houses stuff that surrounds myth!

Owner is India’s richest, Mukesh Ambani of Reliance fame whose net worth was 43 Billion in March of this year and was the 5th richest in the world.

The only remotely comparable high-rise property currently on the market is the 70 million dollar triplex penthouse at the Pierre Hotel in New York, designed to resemble a French chateau, and climbing 525 feet in the air.

When the Ambani residence is finished in January, completing four years of design and construction, it will be 27 story and 550 feet high (height which normally houses 60 floors) with 400,000 square feet of interior space. (Click on the picture to see a video).

However, all of this has not been without its share of controversies. Antilla is being built on land sold to Ambanis’ to be used as orphanage by Waqf Board.The land measuring 11793 sq yards was sold in 2004 by the trust for a charitable purpose of looking after the destitutes and orphan children belonging to the Khoja Mohammedan community. The land was given to the Maharashtra State Board of Waqf by Jivagi Raje Scindia in 1957. The MoU was signed with four companies namely Antillia Commercials, Saphire Realtors, Rockline Constructions and Baun Foundation trust.

The Waqf Board has told the Supreme Court that it sold the property thinking it was to be used for an orphanage and that commercial buildings are not allowed on Waqf land. Property having a market value of Rs 400 crore was sold only for Rs 21.05 cr to M/s Antillia Commercial, a company of Reliance group of Industries. Rs 16 crores were also paid to Waqf Board for No Objection Certificate.

The Supreme Court on Friday decided not to intervene in the construction of the building on Waqf board land in Mumbai and has directed the matter back to the Bombay high court.

Critics have also said that showing off such extravagant wealth in a country rife with poverty is insensitive and ethically questionable. This is excessive and ostentatious given that more than 65 percent of Mumbai’s 18 million residents live in tenements.

Features which have made it the world’s best:

• The first six floors will be reserved for parking alone, and that too for cars belonging only to Mukesh’s family. Space for a total of 168 imported cars has been earmarked here.
• Where possible, the designers say, whether it’s for the silver railings, magnificient crystal chandeliers, woven area rugs or steel support beams, the Ambanis are using Indian companies, contractors, craftsmen and materials firms.

  

• Elements of Indian culture juxtapose newer designs. For example, the sinks in a lounge extending off the entertainment level, which features a 65 seat movie theater and wine room, are shaped like ginkgo leaves (native to India) with the stem extending to the faucet to guide the water into the basin.
• The top floors of entertaining space, where Ambani plans to host business guests (or just relax) offer panoramic views of the Arabian Sea.
• No two floors are alike in either plans or materials used. If a metal, wood or crystal is part of the ninth-floor design, it shouldn’t be used on the eleventh floor, for example. The idea is to blend styles and architectural elements so spaces give the feel of consistency, but without repetition.
• Atop six stories of parking lots, Antilla’s living quarters begin at a lobby with nine elevators, as well as several storage rooms and lounges.
• Down dual stairways with silver-covered railings is a large ballroom with 80% of its ceiling covered in crystal chandeliers. It features a retractable showcase for pieces of art, a mount of LCD monitors and embedded speakers, as well as stages for entertainment. The hall opens to an indoor/outdoor bar, green rooms, powder rooms and allows access to a nearby “entourage room” for security guards and assistants to relax.

• On the health level, local plants decorate the outdoor patio near the swimming pool and yoga studio. The floor also features an ice room where residents and guests can escape the Mumbai heat to a small, cooled chamber dusted by man-made snow flurries. Each family member has a separate gymn here.

• For more temperate days, the family will enjoy a four-story open garden. In profile, the rebar-enforced beams form a “W” shape that supports the upper two-thirds of the building while creating an open-air atrium of gardens, flowers and lawns.
  
• Gardens, whether hanging hydroponic plants, or fixed trees, are a critical part of the building’s exterior adornment but also serve a purpose: The plants act as an energy-saving device by absorbing sunlight, thus deflecting it from the living spaces and making it easier to keep the interior cool in summer and warm in winter. An internal core space on the garden level contains entertaining rooms and balconies that clear the tree line and offer views of downtown Mumbai.
• Antilla’s shape is based on Vaastu, an Indian tradition much like Feng Shui that is said to move energy beneficially through the building by strategically placing materials, rooms and objects. At Antilia, the overall plan is based on the square, which is Vaastu’s basic geometric unit, and a garden level occupies the tower’s midsection, the point where all energies converge according to the Vaastu Purusha Mandala.
• The 27-story building is eco-friendly, with hydroponically grown plants cooling the building and filtering its air, limiting the need for air-conditioning. With vertical gardens, you can use the whole wall almost like a tree and increase the green area of the site by five or 10 times over what it would be if you just did a green roof.

The four floors at the top, just below the hellipad that provides a view of the Arabian Sea and a superb view of the city’s skyline, is where Mukesh with his wife Neeta, their three kids and Mukesh’s mother Kokilaben, will reside. Nearly 600 people would attend to the six in the family.

The residence tower stands on Mumbai’s Altamount Road on an acre site where real estate costs as much as $1800/square foot. Mumbai is the densest city of India with almost 30,000 people per square kilometer.

The architects, Perkins + Will and Hirsch Bedner Associates, the designers behind the Mandarin Oriental, based in Dallas and Los Angeles, were picked up by Nita Ambani, who was recently in news for being gifted a $59 million air jet by her husband on her 44th birthday! The jet, like their new home, was fitted with a plush bar with mood lighting, a master bedroom, showers and a state-of-the-art entertainment cabin.

The architects and designers say,”You are looking at the model for the buildings of the future.”

Read on:

Nanocity- the idea of a sustainable city ‘with world class infrastructure and to create an ecosystem for innovation leading to economy, ecology and social cohesion’ is taking place near another architecture paradise- Chandigarh, which was commissioned by first prime minister of independent India to reflect new nation’s modern and progressive outlook. Nehru famously proclaimed Chandigarh to be ‘unfettered by the traditions of the past, a symbol of the nation’s faith in the future.’

In 1966 French architect Le Corbusier and his team produced a plan for Chandigarh that conformed to the modernist city planning principles of CIAM, in terms of division of urban functions, an anthropomorphic plan form, and a hierarchy of road and pedestrian networks. Chandigarh, for a very long time, was perceived to be an experimental city!

Today after forty some years, Sabeer Bhatia [of Hotmail fame] has embarked upon another multi-billion dollar Nanocity idea in collaboration with Government of Haryana [India] and the faculty and students of UC Berkeley, California [USA]. Nanocity will replicate if not surpass the standards of the Silicon Valley of US.

Spread over 11,138 acres, Nanocity will have about 50% of the area earmarked for parks and green spaces. It will have 4 districts- information technology IT, university, airport and biotech for administrative control.

On the power front, Nanocity would opt for solar energy, wind, geothermal and biomass. ‘We may get energy from Himachal Pradesh. American power company AES Corporation is looking at it,’ Bhatia said. For water, the city would use techniques such as rain water harvesting, waste water management, use of solar geysers and energy efficient lamps. There will be a bus transit system to inter-connect the entire city.

Bhatia is confident that lots of jobs will be generated. ‘For every high-tech employment position introduced, three low wage or informal sector jobs would be created’, he said.

Update: $300 million have been invested for land acquisition and an additional $1.2-1.5 billion investment would be needed for development of infrastructure like roads and sewage system. Nanocity will be ready for occupation in 2010.