GMS Grande Palladium building has a faceted exterior of tessellated glass and ridged aluminium. It`s located in Mumbai, and she is designed by Indian studio Malik Architecture. Six floors of office accommodation are raised onto a podium eight metres above the ground, creating a terrace and thoroughfare at street level. Penthouse office suites for the client and his son are contained in the two uppermost floors and within the narrow cantilevers. A cafe, gym and members club are located on the podium floor, which can be accessed by car via an external ramp. Two basement floors provide car parking.
The uniqueness of this project is that it operates on multiple levels. On one hand it uses technology and intelligent design to improve the working environment of its inhabitants, while working inclusively in an urban context. On the other hand, it is a critical commentary on some of the antiquated notions that have plagued contemporary commercial design in the subcontinent. Commercial and corporate architecture in Mumbai has evolved a generic idiom and nowhere is this more apparent than at the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), where a myriad of glass monoliths exist side by side; one indistinguishable from the other. The eschewment of ornamentation, the treatment of structure as skin, the repudiation of self-aggrandizing atriums, the moulding of building volumes to perform multiple functions simultaneously, the treatment of landscape as an integral part of development and an exploration of its varying moods, the focus on sustainability, the holistic approach to design and execution are a direct result of a critical analysis of the exigent and often superficial buildings proliferating in the subcontinent. (more on dezeen.com/2011/08/02/gms-grande-palladium-by-malik-architecture)
