Semester 7, 2025Baiyappanahalli, Bengaluru, next to SMVT station

Raise it

The old NGEF factory ground. I lifted the whole building up so the neighbourhood gets the ground to play on.

Section through the raised hub: brick-red rooms hung between tall columns under a sawtooth roof, people on the open ground below, misty trees behind.

NGEF was a government electric factory. It has long since shut down, and its land sits empty next to the railway station. My idea was simple and a bit extreme: lift almost the whole building up to +4.5 m on 15 m tall columns, and leave the old factory ground open for the neighbourhood to play on.

There's a library, an internet hub, a daycare, music and dance rooms, sports, and even some farming. A skywalk runs to SMVT station, and the ramps go up at 1:10, 1:15 and 1:20 on purpose, so moving through the building is also a bit of exercise.

014 pieces

Thinking on butter paper

Most of the thinking happened on butter paper laid over the aerial: the contours, the compound wall, and the slope that works like a natural moat.

Butter paper traced over the printed aerial of the NGEF ground.
Butter-paper site sections along the western edge.
Butter-paper sections cut across the 8 m concrete compound wall on the eastern edge.
Stacked butter-paper edge sections A to E along the site boundary.
023 pieces

The idea

Keep the ground untouched and let plants, animals and people take it over. Everything else goes up.

Coloured-pencil zoning on butter paper: the plinth as a green web of paths.
Pen concept sketch: using the existing forest cover to keep people alert.
Digital hand sketches of five edge conditions: the drop to Krishnayanapalya.
036 pieces

The drawings

Rendered master plan: the factory plinth under a column grid.
Plan at +4500: the raised web of walkways and ramps linking the sports.
Plan at the upper levels (+6000 to +7500): studios.
Long section: brick-red boxes hung between 15 m columns under a thin roof.
Section through the central blocks: stacked rooms on a raised slab.
Section through the performance and library blocks: a stepped seating ramp under suspended rooms.
041 piece

The model

White model aerial of the site.

Next · Semester 5, 2024

Halasuru Bridged

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