This office is spacious, simple, sports an earthy material palette, and is surrounded by trees.
This office is made for placid ruminations. The aim was to embrace the surroundings and the site’s past while creating something new. The language to express this was to be natural, in celebration of all the essential textures and patterns. The team from Sanctuary Architects & Interior Designers was to sit here to make the most of its creative energies.
“The change of materials, scale and volume in the new structure clearly defines the transition between the old structure and the new,” says one of the designers.
Located in Sadashiv Nagar in Bengaluru, the Sanctuary office is spared the worst of traffic and confusion. The 1,700-sq ft area spreads across two levels; a folded metal plate staircase connects the lower level with the mezzanine where the principal architects sit.
The two-layered roof system is topped by a GI sheet, while below it is an independent arch made from Aerocon blocks. The air gap thus created allows for the necessary heat loss.
There are the tall walls housing glass doors and windows with knotted pine frames. Then there are the wooden ceiling sections where the rafter pattern splits the illumination from hanging tube lights. Other overhead lamps are affixed to or hang down from metal tracks that run along the arched roof.
The open work desks are white, with pistachio green dividers that look almost radioactive under full light. The grey cement concrete flooring stretches across the lower level, reliably bringing that under-construction look with it, while the flooring on the mezzanine changes to a polished wood look. A multi-functional unit sits at one end of the workstations, smartly gathering up the files, the printing and the library materials, and other resources, and clearing up the main areas for better movement.
One quasi-casual element is the outdoor seating scheme in this office. The lower floor has a lovely green patch that is linear, open to a close rendezvous with the trees. This is also the entry courtyard, laying out a relaxed welcome to whoever steps into the main work zones. Attached to the mezzanine is another outdoor sitting area.
On the mezzanine, a coconut tree is a part of the wall, its elegant body snaking into the room before escaping through the ceiling. The design was oriented to allow the trees to become a part of the space.
