Smriti 57, Mumbai

Steel as a construction material offers tremendous flexibility in planning, speed of construction as well as an opportunity in expressing ‘structural aesthetics’.

Each floor plate admeasuring 10 Mts x 16 Mts, rest’s on only four steel columns, 450 mm in diameter, braced intermittently by 600 mm deep ‘I’ beams with galvanized deck sheets as slabs. The system itself could be imagined as a ‘chest’ on four legs with 6 shelves.

Given the simplified appearance of the external structure, the interiors are fairly deceptive. The Grid over six floors in broken down into a guest floor on the first level, a duplex over the next two levels followed by a triplex over the subsequent floors.

After the basic conceptualization of the structure, individual floor plans were drawn , catering to the needs of individual family members. The complexity of internal walls and partitions, configuration of windows and voids, need for safe and secured spaces, private and open areas were all built into the grid, enabling the structure to perform as a ‘Home’.