India Art n Design: Bookshelf with an Attitude!

India Art n Design: Bookshelf with an Attitude!: By Priyanka Vikash 

Photography: Kabilan S & Amit Khanna.; courtesy AKDA

IAnD discovers how imagination meets sustainability

Bookshelf with an Attitude!

By Priyanka Vikash

Photography: Kabilan S & Amit Khanna.; courtesy AKDA

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IAnD discovers how imagination meets sustainability in simple design re-use giving rise to an innovative exhibition design component; courtesy Amit Khanna Design Associates, New Delhi.

An invitee participation in an exhibition, with an opportunity to showcase the firm’s prowess is something that every designer looks forward to. So one is accustomed to seeing large panels of images and pop-ups that speak of the philosophy and working of the design/architecture firm.  

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At the recently (Feb’13) held DesignxDesign’s 20 under 35 exhibition at Delhi, Amit Khanna Design Associates came up with a simple but intriguing twist to the regular exhibition panel. They decided to make their participation tangible via a spatial intervention instead of just another wall-mounted flat panel.

Bearing in mind the firm’s staunch and acclaimed philosophy of making regional specificity and sustainability intrinsic to the product and the design process, and its constant engagement with ‘suitable materiality and innovation, irrespective of appearance’, the firm decided to use their cherished first piece of office furniture – a bookshelf – as the innovative mouthpiece of all that they stand for.

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“The focus at AKDA is to deliver innovation that uplifts our environment, instead of allowing our built environment to be a mish-mash of private agendas,” explains Amit. “The bookshelf was repurposed for the exhibit staying true to our sustainable attitude, and secondly, the modular system design helps to demonstrate our design ethos.”

With just 9 sq. ft. allotted to the exhibition display, AKDA transformed the bookshelf from its regular avatar into one with multiple interventions that resulted in an outer frame and inner partitions, making it easy to assemble and dismantle. Freestanding and placed in a well-lit area of the exhibition space, the modular bookshelf successfully engaged viewers, who could walk around it. The idea here was to let the exhibit grab the spotlight and it did.

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A simple exercise of innovative thought and design application that served to take away the old chore of an exhibition installation that would become redundant in the future; and instead replace it with an exhibit ‘that would go back to use'. The bookshelf now wears an attitude!

Smart Warehouse Project

We are designing a smart warehouse in a remote suburb of Delhi. The brief was to create a shell for an automated warehouse that would have lots of equipment with minimal human occupancy. 

Our strategy was to wrap the 15000sq.ft. structure in a brick screen that cuts down glare and provides a high degree of passive insulation. There is a dust barrier at 1200mm behind the screen and the gap provides a working area to provide utilities as and when required, without disturbing the overall internal layout. That is Smart, Sustainable & we think it looks pretty Awesome too.

The thing we are most kicked about is the ambient temperature and light quality within the building. It is cool and well-lit, without the glare. Which, in a climate like Delhi, is nothing short of a miracle.

More details and better pictures soon.

AKDA is part of "20 under 35"

Our firm has been chosen to be part of "20 under 35", an exhibition showcasing the work of 20 young Indian  designers below the age of 35. The participants are selected from the fields of architecture, apparel and textile design, graphic design and products. We are one of 5 architecture firms this year. Woo Hoo!

"20 under 35" is an intitiative of DesignXDesign and Alliance Francaise.

The exhibition is at the Gallerie Romain Rolland, Alliance Francaise at 72, Lodi Estate, New Delhi. It opens on the 7th of February and runs through till the 27th of February.

We will be there on the 7th at 6:30pm at the opening. See you there.

About the Exhibit

The Plane Wins

"The Plane", a floor lamp designed and manufactured by AKDA has won a citation in the Products Category of the IA&B Young Designer Awards. 

The light is conceived as floating planes, of wood and glass, alternating and revolving around a central axis, to craft light around itself.  As an object, the alternating voids aid in generating a dramatic pattern of light, augmenting the light quality of the space it is contained in. Envisaged as a composition of overlapping surfaces, The Plane shapes light form through its planar surfaces. Light is produced in multiple directions and reflected through the multiple layers of horizontal glass

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

AKDA has had an interesting 2012. We have wrapped up some successful projects and have broken ground on many more. We look forward to 2013 where we'll continue our quest to make great architecture. We would like to thank all our clients, employees, consultants, contractors and soon-to-be clients for supporting our love for making well designed buildings.

Have a Merry Christmas & a great new year!

A Little Fun

For those of you, who were too young, or too old, or too busy to have seen Seinfeld, take a couple of weeks off and watch them all back to back. Of course, architects are big fans. Here's why