Bangalore’s iconic architecture in making

“It is going to be an epical finial for the city; it will be a tropical experience,” says Ravindra Kumar, Principal Architect, Pragrup
Pragrup is trying a huge master plan of a 600 acre x 118 acre development which would host an academy as well as a large stadium which would have a mobile floor plate, mobile roof plate and a cricket space which can host 1,00,000 spectators and more than 150,000 people for an event. It will annex a large public plaza, a city courtyard which would house a large city centre mall with natural air conditioning, using geo air-thermal conditioning plus a hotel which will be LEED qualified. The present position is for fund-raising and budget projection for the project. Ravindra Kumar shares why Pragrup is super excited, keen and wanting to splurge India’s modernity to the world. SpecificationIt is going to home a 1-lakh capacity cricket stadium with a mobile floor and roof. It’s going to have a 450-cube eco hotel and 1-million sq. feet air mall city centre. An academy, which will be a learning centre on an 18-acre piece of land, will support cricket education. USP of the projectThe prima intent is an exploration to understand the new urbanism for India. To explore the potentials of what a public space could be. Questions such as what an outdoor space can be. What makes people want to gather and what makes people to come to a city, to belong to a city, to icon an image for the city. In terms of new explorations, Pragrup is looking for satellites or extensions for Bangalore and decentralise. Status of the projectIt’s on the board for statutory clearances with the government as well as under scrutiny with the client board for the investment partnerships. This is one part of the process and parallel umpteen case studies have been conducted; consultants have been appointed and are on board for evaluation and qualifying the eventual.
Socio-economic impactOn the face it is going to weave the new Bangalore with the old Bangalore lost. The Initiation is value engineering to an extension to a new town, the ideal clean town Bangalore as an asymptote to sample new development. It is to understand decentralisation of a city infrastructure. It must ideate in all new cities in India. Moving away from the idea of uptown and down town market, creating an architectural exploration for what is truly tropical. Most architecture that we see in south of India is now treading the universal. Language tropical in terms of its planning initiation.  Challenges in executionThe biggest challenge would be the technology. Such a project is very complicated both as an architectural making and also the services infra it has to host. We therefore are trying to assemble those parallels. It will be a challenge. The process of construction is extremely strenuous in our country. I am not saying in terms of the evaluation, what makes the whole criteria of building ability, technology, labor in our country is complicated, it’s more process driven and the complexity for statutory clearances is humongous. Not because the intent is to qualify the activity of what is being constructed, just the red tapism and people involved will be a huge struggle. Solutions being undertakenI can only say keeping faith and good spirits. There must be transparency; things should become more technology related, host all discussions on line for submissions.  Remove people interface. There should be public hearing committees formed to bring in clearance criteria to debate a positive opposition for the construct.
Dream projectNECE Mixed Use Development• Developer: NECE• Project cost: ` 680 crore• Architect: Pragrup• USP: Exploration to understand urbanism for India• Status: In introspection phase

14