Production Building for Synergy Lifestyles

Abstract

Shimul Javeri Kadri Architects (SJK) had set themselves a particular challenge with this building commission for a textile processing company: paying very close attention to the genius loci, the spirit of the place. The all-female team did not intend to construct a normal industrial plant, but to develop a building that reflects this local character, while at the same time interpreting it. The building was to fit in without attempting to ingratiate itself, do justice to scale, but assert itself in every detail, pick up elements of the existing buildings but offer solutions of its own. In the largely hot and dry climate, a humane and social atmosphere was to go hand in hand with local technology and materials available in the immediate vicinity. This not only helped to keep the costs down, but also gave local people the opportunity to be actively involved in the construction process. In this way the local workforce would be able to accumulate experience in handling the materials and later identify with this new “product” they had made themselves, a by no means unimportant factor in a rural area. The architects started to study the place and established that the anonymous buildings had many kinds of large and small courtyards, striking gable walls on a lot of the houses featured doors and windows crafted in the local carpentry tradition.