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IKSOI
Design Studio
Ahmedabad
«For us architecture is a medium to record and narrate the happenings of our times.»
«For us architecture is a medium to record and narrate the happenings of our times.»
«For us architecture is a medium to record and narrate the happenings of our times.»
Please introduce your office …
IKSOI is a small and curious design studio. It is driven by the ideas revolving around design, formation and behavior and is based in the rapidly growing city of Ahmedabad, in a bustling country, India. Within this context of abundance and speed, IKSOI chooses to engage in the pleasures of interaction, contemplation, exploration and expression through design.
How did you find your way into the field of Architecture?
We exactly cannot recall how, but it was not by chance for sure!
What are your experiences founding Studio IKSOI?
IKSOI came into existence with a commission to design a garment-stitching unit, which was to accommodate a large workforce of 800 people in 2011. Since then IKSOI has enabled us to remain in a constant state of learning and reflecting on several social, environmental and economical issues.
How would you characterize Ahmedabad as a location for architects who want to start their own practice? How is the context of this place influencing your work?
As hinted earlier, Ahmedabad is a rapidly growing city and thus has a large appetite for urgent design solutions, which can offer a balance between its aspirations & limitations.
Faculty of architecture, Cept University and its school of thought continues to influence and motivate us. It has always provoked us to be extremely sensitive and receptive to our immediate surroundings and thus have a constant dialogue with the city and its culture.
What does your working space look like?
What is the essence of architecture for you personally?
For us architecture is a medium to record and narrate the happenings of our times.
Your master of architecture?
A Book: The Eyes of the Skin, by Juhani Pallasmaa.
A Person: Professor Balkrishna Doshi.
A Building: School of Architecture, Cept University, Ahmedabad, by Professor B. V. Doshi.
How do you choose to present architecture?
At IKSOI, representation is used as a means to speculate, in the sense that it involves a process of abstraction and filtering information and thus offering clarity throughout the process of design. Just as every design is theorized differently, similarly every idea demands a unique method of communication or representation.
What has to change in the architecture industry? How do you imagine the future?
As the line between architecture and construction is getting thinner and thinner, contributions and consequences of architecture as a faculty are increasingly being underrated in the recent times.
«May the force be with architecture!»
Project
Suryshree
Ahmedabad, India
2014
«Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?» — Michel Foucault
The client approached IKSOI to help them design a manufacturing unit for Aerated Autoclaved Concrete Blocks in the outskirts of Ahmedabad with very limited time and money. This complete set of large machinery was to be imported and then assembled on site.
Machinery being mostly automated, it required very little human occupancy within the facility and thus the exercise here primarily remained for us to design an efficient assembly line and a shelter for this machine.
Distribution on plan reflects the technical requirements of machinery and the overall manufacturing process, meanwhile the section takes advantage of different volumetric requirements of the plant in order to achieve an overall form, scale and identity for the project.
To imagine and conceive a shelter for this machine became the pivoting exercise for us. As the site for this factory is located in the middle of large areas of agricultural land, it created this perfect opportunity for us to reflect and comment on the recent and increasing phenomenon of the sudden and shocking intrusion of technology into a pastoral scene.
This project mainly attempts to create a dialogue around the irony of large industrial developments in rural settings and re-evaluate the form of relationship between them.
Project
Suryshree
Ahmedabad, India
2014
«Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?» — Michel Foucault
The client approached IKSOI to help them design a manufacturing unit for Aerated Autoclaved Concrete Blocks in the outskirts of Ahmedabad with very limited time and money. This complete set of large machinery was to be imported and then assembled on site.
Machinery being mostly automated, it required very little human occupancy within the facility and thus the exercise here primarily remained for us to design an efficient assembly line and a shelter for this machine.
Distribution on plan reflects the technical requirements of machinery and the overall manufacturing process, meanwhile the section takes advantage of different volumetric requirements of the plant in order to achieve an overall form, scale and identity for the project.
To imagine and conceive a shelter for this machine became the pivoting exercise for us. As the site for this factory is located in the middle of large areas of agricultural land, it created this perfect opportunity for us to reflect and comment on the recent and increasing phenomenon of the sudden and shocking intrusion of technology into a pastoral scene.
This project mainly attempts to create a dialogue around the irony of large industrial developments in rural settings and re-evaluate the form of relationship between them.
client: Suryshree Wellness Pvt. Ltd.
location: Ahmedabad, India.
status: completed, 2014.
site area: 320,000 Sqft.
built area: 45,000 Sqft.
image credits: Vishal Mehta
Axonometries
