Cloth architecture was among the most dramatic and colourful paraphernalia of princely life in the medieval world. Vast tented encampments accompanied the great monarchs of Asia and Europe on their long wars, vacations and pilgrimages. Portable, and often highly decorative, palaces of cloth afforded to the imperial entourages not only shelter and security but also the comfort and beauty to which they were accustomed. A magnificent example of medieval textile architecture is the historic Lal Dera, ‘red tent’ of Jodhpur (Marwar). It remains as the largest of all decorative objects to have survived from the Mughal era.
The Lal Dera is housed in the Mehrangarh Museum in Jodhpur, is the most iconic of them all.Taking inspiration from its historic design, we used the structuring idea of the original, the arch and the tensioned fabric but expanded it to take a formal direction of uninhibited scale. The opulence in our interpretation is an outcome of a soaring spatial experience.
Photo credits : Kunal Sharma
Diagrams & Drawings
Project Facts
Client : AD ( Architectural Digest )
Area : 54 Sqm ( L x B x H – 9.0m x 6.0m x10.0 m )
Architects: Sameep Padora & Associates
Design Team: Sameep Padora, Vami Koticha , Kunal Sharma , Santhosh Narayanan
Event Name : AD Design Show 2023
Event Date : Sep 15-17th , 2023
Fabricator : Bhavin Nagda
The factory is located on a plot in a logistical warehousing facility on the outskirts of Mumbai. As is typical of most industrial warehouses in the area, the default construction material for most buildings is corrugated metal sheathing and the general prevalent built form is opaque without visual or physical connection to the immediate environment, thus turning the precinct into a continuous hard edge. Our first instinct was to position the project as relief from the experience of this existing impervious precinct mass. On the North-West corner of our site, a portion prone to seasonal flooding we consolidated a low lying, as a water body that fluctuates through the year allowing for water to enter and drain the site based on surrounding water levels. While the expression of the building?s heaviness was of interest, the heart of the project is the void of the central open to sky courtyard around which the factory?s building?s production floors are organized. These relatively thin floorplates ensured well-lit work spaces. The central open to sky courtyard is visually connected to the common spaces of the precinct outside the building through the void under a 50 foot cantilevered floor over the seasonal water body doubling as a shaded breakout space for the employees. The cast-in-place heavy concrete materiality of the ?porous? block is in sharp contrast to lightweight but opaque steel sheathing of the buildings around. The corner void connecting to the central void courtyard creates an extroverted factory type, visually linking to the access road beyond the site as well as offering relief from the impenetrable adjoining building masses.
