flexiblefullpage
billboard
interstitial1
catfish1
Currently Reading

Steven Holl wins Mumbai City Museum competition with 'solar water' scheme

Steven Holl wins Mumbai City Museum competition with 'solar water' scheme

Steven Holl's design for the new wing features a reflective pool that will generate energy.


By BD+C Staff | December 9, 2014
Renderings: Steven Holl Architects
Renderings: Steven Holl Architects

A jury representing the Mumbai City Museum has selected Steven Holl Architects as the winner of an international competition to design the museum's new wing.

Designboom reports that the jury included the director of London’s L&A Museum, and that it was selecting for Mumbai’s first international architectural competition for a public building. Other competitors included Zaha Hadid, OMA, and Amanda Levete.

The winning design involves building 125,000 sf of floor space, to be developed in white concrete and bringing in exactly 25 lumens of daylight to each gallery, Designboom reports.

At the center of the plan is a massive pool that will generate 60% of the museum’s electricity through photovoltaic cells underneath the water’s surface.

According to Designboom, Steven Holl Architects will now develop the initial design together with local practice Opolis Architects. Guy Nordenson & Associates will serve as structural engineers and Transsolar as sustainability consultants. Construction is expected to begin next year.

 

 

Steven Holl released the following news on the project:
Steven Holl was selected unanimously from 8 finalists including Zaha Hadid, OMA and Amanda Levete, to design a new wing for the Mumbai City Museum, also known as Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum.

The jury included Martin Roth, director of the V&A Museum in London, Tasneem Mehta, Managing Trustee & Honorary Director of the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Homi Bhabha, Director of the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard, Sen Kapadia, architect at Sen Kapadia Associates and founding director of the Kamala Reheja Vdyanidhi Institute for Conceptual Architecture in Mumbai, among other leading professionals of the museum world and academia.

Mumbai's oldest museum garden in Byculla will have a 125,000 sq ft new wing. The Mumbai City Museum's North Wing addition is envisioned as a sculpted subtraction from a simple geometry formed by the site boundaries.

The concept of "Addition as Subtraction" is developed in white concrete with sculpted diffused light in the 65,000 sq ft new gallery spaces. Deeper subtractive cuts bring in exactly twenty-five lumens of natural light to each gallery. 

The basically orthogonal galleries are given a sense of flow and spatial overlap from the light cuts. The central cut forms a shaded monsoon water basin which runs into a central pool, related to the great stepped well architecture of India.

The central pool joins the new and old in its reflection and provides sixty percent of the museum's electricity through photovoltaic cells located below the water's surface. The white concrete structure has an extension of local rough-cut Indian Agra stone. The circulation through the galleries is one of spatial energy, while the orthogonal layout of the walls foregrounds the Mumbai City Museum collections. 

 

Related Stories

Market Data | May 1, 2023

AEC firm proposal activity rebounds in the first quarter of 2023: PSMJ report

Proposal activity for architecture, engineering and construction (A/E/C) firms increased significantly in the 1st Quarter of 2023, according to PSMJ’s Quarterly Market Forecast (QMF) survey. The predictive measure of the industry’s health rebounded to a net plus/minus index (NPMI) of 32.8 in the first three months of the year. 

Sustainability | May 1, 2023

Increased focus on sustainability is good for business and attracting employees

A recent study, 2023 State of Design & Make by software developer Autodesk, contains some interesting takeaways for the design and construction industry. Respondents to a survey of industry leaders from the architecture, engineering, construction, product design, manufacturing, and entertainment spheres strongly support the idea that improving their organization’s sustainability practices is good for business.

Codes and Standards | May 1, 2023

Hurricane Ian aftermath expected to prompt building code reform in Florida

Hurricane Ian struck the Southwest Florida coastline last fall with winds exceeding 150 mph, flooding cities, and devastating structures across the state. A construction risk management expert believes the projected economic damage, as high as $75 billion, will prompt the state to beef up building codes and reform land use rules. 

| Apr 28, 2023

$1 billion mixed-use multifamily development will add 1,200 units to South Florida market

A giant $1 billion residential project, The District in Davie, will bring 1.6 million sf of new Class A residential apartments to the hot South Florida market. Located near Ft. Lauderdale and greater Miami, the development will include 36,000 sf of restaurants and retail space. The development will also provide 1.1 million sf of access controlled onsite parking with 2,650 parking spaces. 

Architects | Apr 27, 2023

Blind Ambition: Insights from a blind architect on universal design

Blind architect Chris Downey shares his message to designers that universal design goes much further than simply meeting a code to make everything accessible.

Design Innovation Report | Apr 27, 2023

BD+C's 2023 Design Innovation Report

Building Design+Construction’s Design Innovation Report presents projects, spaces, and initiatives—and the AEC professionals behind them—that push the boundaries of building design. This year, we feature four novel projects and one building science innovation.

Mixed-Use | Apr 27, 2023

New Jersey turns a brownfield site into Steel Tech, a 3.3-acre mixed-use development

In Jersey City, N.J., a 3.3-acre redevelopment project called Steel Tech will turn a brownfield site into a mixed-use residential high-rise building, a community center, two public plazas, and a business incubator facility. Steel Tech received site plan approval in recent weeks.

Multifamily Housing | Apr 27, 2023

Watch: Specifying materials in multifamily housing projects

A trio of multifamily housing experts discusses trends in materials in their latest developments. Topics include the need to balance aesthetics and durability, the advantages of textured materials, and the benefits of biophilia.

AEC Tech Innovation | Apr 27, 2023

Does your firm use ChatGPT?

Is your firm having success utilizing ChatGPT (or other AI chat tools) on your building projects or as part of your business operations? If so, we want to hear from you.

Concrete Technology | Apr 24, 2023

A housing complex outside Paris is touted as the world’s first fully recycled concrete building

Outside Paris, Holcim, a Swiss-based provider of innovative and sustainable building solutions, and Seqens, a social housing provider in France, are partnering to build Recygénie—a 220-unit housing complex, including 70 social housing units. Holcim is calling the project the world’s first fully recycled concrete building.

boombox1
boombox2
native1

More In Category




halfpage1

Most Popular Content

  1. 2021 Giants 400 Report
  2. Top 150 Architecture Firms for 2019
  3. 13 projects that represent the future of affordable housing
  4. Sagrada Familia completion date pushed back due to coronavirus
  5. Top 160 Architecture Firms 2021