Urban Hotel

The Amber Hotels wanted to create a boutique business hotel in south Delhi to offer guests the luxurious ambience associated with larger hotels. The strategy was to create calm ambience in contrast to the bustling, invasive city. 

The public spaces aggregated at the entrance level, designed in crisply-detailed white finishes, while the rooms on upper floors employ richer palette of warm colours. A large central courtyard, enlivened by a mirror mosaic mural by Vivek Sahni, brings light to public spaces and doubles up as the breakfast area. At night, the terrace garden, is an excellent dining/lounge space for guests. 

The retrofitted façade is a juxtaposition of two wooden elements on white background; an off-center vertical screen and a cantilevered canopy on the terrace, curbing the street sound. The white block of rooms on upper floors floats over transparent public spaces at ground level. The contrast is heightened at night, with interior light and activity animating the dull nature of endless neighboring boundary walls.

Sustainability is a central idea to systems and finishes. Therefore, the hotel has a solar water heating system, key tags sense and control electrical usage in rooms, intelligent VRVII air-conditioning systems minimize energy usage, rainwater is reused and material waste has been incorporated. 

Bathrooms were designed to contrast richer tones of the rooms, and are finished in a muted palette of white and grey stone, blonde wood and glass with rigorous detailing to ensure sustained performance. Colourful Indian art of the pre-colonial era is used throughout the hotel as a counterpoint to the pristine white surfaces.

Designed with a contemporary minimal aesthetic and punctuated with local cultural references by way of art and furniture, the hotel successfully caters to the needs of global traveller while showcasing Indian crafts & tradition.

Location

Sukhdev Vihar,

New Delhi

Client   

Undisclosed

Typology

Hospitality

Climate

Composite

Built-Up Area                

8000 Sq.Ft.

Completion

2009

Garage

Delhi’s urban villages have evolved from being sleepy hamlets surrounded by British era planned development to becoming the city’s design and entertainment hotspots. Free from the strict municipal regulations that are enforced in rest of the city, increased density and cheap rent attracts young entrepreneurs to set up shop in narrow lanes. Hauz Khaz village, located near the lake that once supplied Delhi its drinking water, represents the extreme end of this evolution. Divested almost completely of its original inhabitants, mostly fashion designers, art galleries and restaurants are to be seen here.

The client, an accomplished yet young chef, was already running a successful restaurant in another part of the village and was keen to set up a restaurant with a garage theme. The new site was located on upper floor, affording great views to the outside, but was burdened with sharing the entrance with a house and a few other restaurants. Keeping with the theme, the interior was designed with raw untreated surfaces - unplastered brick walls, grey epoxy flooring and even the ceiling plaster was removed to reveal the raw concrete roof. The view to the forest was opened up with an edge to edge glass wall that was recessed from the facade, creating shade for the glass and a verandah for outdoor sitting.

To create a distinctive character for the restaurant exterior, entrance was enclosed with a long membrane of curved corrugated metal. This corrugation forms the backdrop to the bar counter from the interior. Recalling vintage garage doors, the main entrance door is reinforced with steel tubes and painted green and is set in a distressed exposed brick frame. An added attraction to the area, Garage, Inc references the old, while catering to the new.

This project was done in collaboration with Archiopteryx Architects.

Location

Hauz khas village,

New Delhi

Client  

Undisclosed

Typology

Hospitality

Climate

Composite

Built-Up Area              

1500 Sq.Ft.

Completion

2013

Slender Living

Linear residential plots are an inevitable by-product of densification and growing cities all over the world are infamous for the limited frontage given to residential buildings. The brownstones of New York are rarely wider than 18’, shop-houses in Singapore have a breadth: length ratio of 1:8 or more and Tokyo routinely boasts narrow 15’ lots. Ashok Vihar in Delhi is like any rapidly densifying part of an Asian city where plots that were meant for single family homes are being replaced with multi-family apartments. In the case of this project, the available width for redevelopment was a mere 18’9”.

The building was raised above the road, allowing for a parking level along the entire length of the property. Vertical circulation elements were paired with a courtyard in the centre of the plan, allowing for the edges to be free for the residential spaces. At the front, the living room was pushed out, bringing in light from two sides, whilst still allowing for the kitchen to enjoy the views and get considerable daylight. At the rear, two bedrooms share the width equally and the central dining and family space is illuminated by the courtyard.

A combination of functional requirements is expressed on the façade. The lower two floors were combined to make a 4 bedroom duplex apartment, while the two upper apartments have 2 bedrooms on a single level.The master bedroom on the first floor overlooks a deep veranda formed by recessing the building line. Sand blasted Jaiselmer stone is used on the façade to complement the strong cubic volumes. While the building may currently appear taller than its neighbours, the scale will eventually change to reflect the urban development of the region.

Location

AshokVihar,

New Delhi

Client  

Undisclosed

Typology

Residential

Climate

Composite

Built-Up Area              

6000 Sq.Ft.

Completion

2013

*Photography Credits - Vibhuti Goel