South Asian Human Rights Documentation Centre
Commercial | New Delhi
AREA 1850 SQFT LOCATION NEW DELHI PHOTOGRAPHY ASIM WAQIF
South Asian Human Rights Documentation Centre (SAHRDC) is a non-governmental organisation which seeks to investigate, document and disseminate information about human rights treaties, conventions, violations and education. A small office with limited resources, the SAHRDC also runs an internship programme attracting students and scholars from universities in India and abroad. It required an office to be made on a 50 sqm plot, keeping in mind the spatial efficiency and cost effective construction.
The flanking wall is conceived as an animated, dynamic skin that reflects the bustle of the street while its porosity playfully engages with the street corner. A six brick module is laid in staggered courses that create twirling vertical stacks and an undulating surface. The construction of the screen wall was a result of a five-week process devising masonry techniques on site. From verification of plumb-line to the structural bonding of the brick courses, methods of brick-laying were devised through deep on-site collaboration between the masons and the architects.
The site is at a busy street corner with essentially pedestrian traffic. As the site is not very large, the acoustic and visual intrusion of the street activity into work spaces was a key concern.
The site is at a busy street corner with essentially pedestrian traffic. As the site is not very large, the acoustic and visual intrusion of the street activity into work spaces was a key concern.
Efficient Space utilisation is achieved by creating a single consolidated volume on each floor to be flexibly partitioned as per the client’s requirements. This volume is serviced by a flanking buffer bay of a single flight cantilevered staircase and a toilet stack.
This buffer bay forms a breathing thermal barrier along the sun facing side. By situating the staircase and toilet stack in this bay, the internal workspaces are protected. The porosity of the wall ensures that the buffer bay is well ventilated and yet shaded so as to reduce the amount of heat transmitted to the workspaces. A single repeating brick module creates a visually complex pattern in the manner of traditional South Asian brise-soleils.
The horizontal interlocking between modules essentially happens through the cross-stack overlapping of the central bricks in the modules. In the porous central portion of the façade, brickwork is reinforced horizontally by a laying a thin section (95mm X 125 mm) reinforced cement concrete beam along the cavity created by the missing central brick.
