Elemental Design

Inspired by the natural properties of water — fluidity, transparency and reflectiveness — Mumbai-based Krishnan Parvez Architects create a flowing, open office for shipping company, SBMS, in Mumbai.

- Rupali Sebastian

Workspace design of corporate entities is governed by a variety of factors. It is regulated by guidelines concerning corporate identity and brand perception. It has to optimize seating capacity, and then there are considerations like productivity, comfort, ergonomics… In his quest for difference, the architect has to account for all these, and then steer the design into a refreshing direction. For architects Krishnan V and Parvez Charania of Krishnan Parvez Architects (KPA), commissioned with creating city headquarters for shipping company SBMS in Mumbai, the search ended with an element intimately connected to the company’s nature of business — water.

“As a shipping company with long operating hours, the brief was to make the staff comfortable and create a workspace that would inspire them to do so. To enhance communication and reduce hierarchical corporate identities, the open office was conceptualized similar to a collaborative workspace,” says Parvez. “Right from the outset, the endeavour was to break the preconceived notion of linearity in commercial spaces.” And what better than water, with all its “natural properties of fluidity, transparency, and reflection.”