A Cool Box

The new sales office for Goel Ganga Developments in Pune, which is designed as an oasis in the middle of nowhere by Studio Infinity, shows us what it means to fulfil a client’s design brief without compromising on one’s design philosophy.

Carol Ferrao

In the real estate sector, the opportunity to be inventive and off beat is often rare. Since time and money are both of the essence here, developers prefer standardised, fool-proof, tried-and-tested designs over something that is unexplored and new. But in the hands of a good design team, these constraints are not a limitation but a chance to challenge the norm and perception. When Studio Infinity was commissioned to design a sales office for an upcoming real estate project by Goel Ganga Developments in Talegaon, Pune, both Tushar Kothawade (principal architect) and Chiranjivi Lunkad (principal designer) seized the opportunity to present a design that is thoughtful towards the client’s aspirations, project constraints and climatic demands.

Every real estate client wants a sales premise that will create a lasting impression on prospective buyers and this case was no different. “As construction activity had not started, this office was the only assurance for their clients,” mention the principals. However, there was one more key requirement in the brief: the space would function as a sales office for only 12-18 months, later it would transition into a clubhouse. In a way, the design needed an adaptive reuse quality even before it was built such that most of the design could be easily morphed into a leisure environment in the end.

With that in mind, the design team now had to tackle the fact that right in the middle of the 17 acre plot in a semi-rural location, the 3,500 sq ft sales office had very little inspiration or point of reference to borrow from the surrounding. It was a barren piece of land with no captivating landscape or greenery to harness on. “The contextual reference was about building literally in a no man's land and create a contextual note for all future development on this site,” explains Tushar, as he identified the peculiarities of the site.