Revived By Recycling

Design Work Group take up the challenge of creating an upbeat, friendly, casual work environment for a Suratbased IT company, Peacock Technology, keeping a strict watch on the budget.

- Rupali Sebastian

For architects and designers who believe in pushing the envelope, each project, each assignment adds something new to their cache of knowledge. Another lesson learnt. Another trick of the trade mastered. One more notch in the scale of experience. A new pearl of wisdom. So it was for Surat-based Design Work Group (.DWG), when an old client came to them with a new task: convert an old unused building in to a work place for a software company called Peacock Technology, in an SEZ located in the same city. Inspired by the casual, informal and fun workspaces of tech-gaints, this entrepreneur ticked off the same qualities in his brief sheet. But there was catch: unlike the behemoths, this company would have to keep an eagle’e eye on it’s budget. The firm — helmed by architects Jitendra Sabalpara, Bharat Patel and Dinesh Suthar — therefore had to ensure the maximum bang for its buck.

“The project was different for two reasons. One, this was the first time we were dealing with the IT sector. And the second difference was the outcome of the slim budget. It prompted us to look at strategies such as reduce, reuse and recycle. We had to look at alternative methods of designing and execution. This directly impacted the aesthetic of the end-result, which was very different from our work which is crisp, straight-lined and minimal,” says Dinesh.