Indus Business District
IBD (Indus Business District) Office Building is located in a commercial area along University Road in Karachi. The design seeks to question the very basic meaning of an office tower aside from the amalgamation/embodiment of the vertical morphology of a high-rise/skyscraper with the standard office space.
Joseph Mwaisaka
Since time immemorial, the main purpose of an office environment has always been to support its occupants in performing their jobs. This goes contrary to the complex systems of sustainability whereby as much as a volume or a building responds to the environmental and economic impacts, social responsiveness is as vital and as broad as other complex systems. The architecture needs to transcend from the space, to the utilitarian and to the conscious. This doesn’t mean the anthropometric state only, but of the power of architecture being more hospitable to existence. IBD, offers a great amount of retail space, trainee classes, bibliotheque and mediatheque, hydroponic gardens, green sky lobbies and sky cafeteria, staff housing scheme and further on dedicates its entire 56ft high foyer to the public. Access both within and outside the office premises is via bicycle or walking through the provision of 8ft wide walkways.
IBD allows in maximum daylighting through a hollowed core open to the sky and large appendages that act as parks in the sky or elevated squares. These parks also serve as green roofs for the floors below, thus reducing the building’s use of mechanical cooling by 80% and are bicycle friendly. These parks feature orchards and aromatic gardens that ultimately blur the line between a home environment and an office environment. The façade design ranges from SIPs (Structural Insulated Panels) to Concrete walls but the overall finish is of copper panels that insulate the building and offer the illusion of an edifice aging with time. Hence rather than the unconventional NeoModern typologies that speak of no time, IBD offers the public an awareness on how long this remarkable edifice stands before them. Etched on the copper panels is selected poetry from the late Allama Iqbal (A notable poet and visionary of Pakistan)…poetry that speaks of nature’s influence on humanity much like the way nature and its elements has influenced the design of the IBD Building.
On the roof top of the IBD is a hydroponic farm that serves mainly for the staff housed in the proposed Housing Scheme that acts as an appendage on the roof top. The housing scheme offers a remarkable 360 degree view of the area that surrounds this commercial zone. In its hyper rational self, IBD is a cohesive and holistic edifice that intertwines space, atmosphere, environment, social interaction and the city in a unique way that works specifically for Karachi’s context. It is the high-rise metamorphosed from previous office buildings into an outcome that is purely and solely, Alchemy.
“You employ stone wood and concrete and with these materials you build houses and palaces. That is construction. Ingenuity is at work.
But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good. I am happy and I say: “This is beautiful. That is Architecture. Art enters in.”
My house is practical. I thank you, as I might thank Railway engineers, or the Telephone service. You have not touched my heart.
But suppose that walls rise towards heaven in such a way that I am moved. I perceive your intentions. Your mood has been gentle, brutal, charming or noble. The stones you have erected tell me so. You fix me to the place and my eyes regard it. They behold something which expresses a thought. A thought which reveals itself without word or sound, but solely by means of shapes which stand in a certain relationship to one another. These shapes are such that they are clearly revealed in light. The relationships between them have not necessarily any reference to what is practical or descriptive. They are a mathematical creation of your mind. They are the language of Architecture.
By the use of inert materials and starting from conditions more or less utilitarian, you have established certain relationships which have aroused my emotions. This is Architecture. “- Le Corbusier
Project Credits:
Project Name :INDUS BUSINESS DISTRICT
Team 2015: Joseph Mwaisaka
School: Dawood University of Engineering & Technology
Profession: B. Arch Student
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