The Qube, IT Offices, Gurgaon



The building is a commercial office space for IT companies located in Gurgaon - a satellite city of Delhi. Gurgaon has seen rampant growth in the last ten years which has made it home to some of the more contemporary office typologies of the day.



The entire project was perceived as a monolithic gonad like wrap around a program. The gist behind the project was to blur the distances between the private and the public realms. A delicate balance between the sustainable approach and demands of a highly commercial setup were the challenge of the project. Functionally however, the building is designed as 12m x 12m regular grid to serve the large floor plate requirements typical of IT establishments. Receding floor plates in combination with double skinned façade give the effect of a cubical volume almost suspended in the grid of columns creating an underbelly within the building envelope.



The skin attains a significant importance in this prototype as it became an entity that would converse with the environment thereby becoming an interface to the external atmosphere. Spatially the building is attired with 3 courtyards which helps blur the distance between the private and the public realm. These courtyards are further articulated by ramps which act as an inclined spine thereby enabling movement and further lending a dynamic vocabulary to the whole space.



The ‘under belly’ of the project is seen as an urban public space given back to the users of the office space. IT offices being a 24x7 operation makes the underbelly even more imperative by way of serving as a sheltered holding area for people to transit through without spilling on to the outside during every shift change and inadvertently adding to the traffic congestion around the site, which otherwise is a growing problem for such offices in the Gurgaon area.



Twin Façade System

The twin-face facade is comprised of a conventional curtain or massive wall system with an outer skin of single glazing. The single-glazed outer skin is used primarily for protection of the air cavity contents (shading devices) from weather. With this system, the internal skin offers the insulating properties to minimize heat gain/ cooling loss. This skin system permits openings in the skin, allowing for natural ventilation. Windows on the interior façade can be opened, while ventilation openings in the outer skin moderate temperature extremes within the façade. The use of windows can allow for night time cooling of the interior thereby lessening cooling loads of the building’s hvac system. For sound control, the openings in the outer skin can be staggered or placed remotely from the windows on the interior façade.

The Qube building images / text from Morphogenesis Architecture 070608



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The Qube Gurgaon Building - page : adrian welch / isabelle lomholt