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| A Sustainable Architectural Approach Issue 28 - Mar 07 Apollo is an industrialist that makes tyres, however, their corporate office in Delhi is reflective of leading design of corporate offices globally. An intelligent, green energy saving building that changed the way the company does business. An executive decision had been made to move Apollo Tyres Ltd’s corporate offices into one location and now photos of the headquarters in Delhi feature prominently on the company website. Apollo is proud of its three decade history and describes itself as “India’s premier tyre manufacturing company”. Director, Raaja Kanwar indicates the move has helped them become so . This was not just a collocation project, but was particularly important to the company because they did it with a “view to enhance corporate image and for consolidation of all management disciplines under one roof.” The board decided on a location outside the city in Gurgaon, one of India’s IT and ITES company hubs where many multinational companies have recently set up offices. At the time, Kanwar says, the particular location was chosen for Apollo’s only corporate facility because “A new complex had been developed by Haryana [provincial] Government which was the first of its kind exclusively for corporate offices in one location.” According to Kanwar, the process they followed went as follows: • Procurement of land and its allotment • Selection process of appointment of architects from a panel of architects • Design selection for various areas of building • Approval of design drawings • Appointment of contractor and project team • Awarding of contract • Obtaining approval for utilities • Obtaining of completion certificate for the building.  Images provided by Morphongenesis Architecture Studio Pvt. Ltd It was at the second stage in the process that Manit Rastogi, Managing Director, Morphogenesis Architectural Studio (MAS) became involved. At that time, Rastogi had returned from completing further study in Energy and Envionmental Design at the Architectural Association, one of the UK’s most prestigious architectural colleges. Rastogi and his associates heard of Apollo’s design competition for their new corporate headquarters. On the back of their Architectural Association work, which adhered to the principals of evolutionary and environmental design, they were given the opportunity to participate in the design competition and the board unanimously chose MAS’s design. They were awarded the project ahead of five other contenders. The brief was developed in tandem with the client and involved merging eight satellite offices plus a district centre in Delhi into one location. The current district centre was very congested, so an emphasis on green space and openness prevailed in the new brief. MAS visited each of the eight offices and was responsible for conducting surveys of user requirements in each individual department. The structure of the design team developed was a matrix structure, which in turn affected how the company was organised on a business level as well. Previously, the company had been very hierarchical but the new headquarters “absolutely influenced” the structure of the company and led to a “fundamental change in the culture of the company” says Rastogi. While a few people were not happy with the changes, he says, this reorganisation was one trigger that helped raise Apollo to the level of an international company. environmental design Rastogi believes buildings should be designed with energy consciousness in mind from the outset. In his view, environmental factors should drive the strategy behind the way the building is designed and built, rather than designing a building where expensive and complicated energy management systems have to be overlayed later. For MAS, technology and management to deal with energy usage or potential environmental damage are secondary and tertiary strategies, to be implemented only once the design itself is as efficient and environmentally friendly as possible. Techniques used in this project included traditional courtyard type designs, which benefited ventilation and ensured that the interior spaces could be naturally lit during the day. Because Delhi is a very hot location, and the designers wanted to include a lot of glass in the design, a series of “solar studies” were done to determine the ideal orientation of the building to reduce heat and glare between the hours of 9:00 and 17:00, when there was maximum occupancy of the office. Rastogi says these studies allowed them to passively reduce heat and glare without having to resort to active control, such as through the use of shutters or other control systems that use energy, require maintenance and are expensive.
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 Director, Raaja Kanwar says this was not just a colocation project, but was particularly important to the company because they did it with a “view to enhance corporate image and for consolidation of all management disciplines under one roof.”
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| integrated Rastogi was also keen to reduce energy consumption over the life of the building through integrating building systems. At that time, he says, there was very little building systems integration in India, “there were, telephone systems, there were security systems, there were access control systems, but nothing to bring them all together”. As MAS has a strong software development capability, a team was asked to design and integrate systems to both conserve energy and control elements such as security and attendance. The first premise of MAS’s energy efficient design was to avoid lighting, cooling and operating other energy consuming systems in unoccupied areas of the building. This was done by integrating all other systems with the access control system. The three ways that occupants could enter the building, the front entrance, the bus drop-off area near the cafeteria and from the carpark, were all fitted with long-range proximity card readers, so that as each employee entered their presence was registered. Registration not only tracks attendance but also activates lighting, cooling and other services in that employee’s office or zone.  images provided by Morphogenesis Architecture Studio Pvt, Ltd. The building recognises where staff are and automatically deactivates energy consuming facilities in their zone when they leave. The temperature in the building before staff arrive might be around 29 degrees, which reduces to around 23 degrees when fully occupied. There are also general override programs, so that if a person leaves and does not come back to the building before 20:00 the area systems go into sleep mode. hoteling and energy saving In this project, hoteling or hot-desking was used as another means of energy saving. MAS identified that on any given day around 20 percent of Apollo’s work force were not in the office, and of this group around 60 percent came from the marketing department. These 100-odd people, who needed desks only eight to ten days per month, are assigned desks only upon entering the office. The areas are populated zone at a time and services (lighting, cooling etc) are only activated incrementally as it filled up. Once desks in one zone are fully occupied, amenities for the next zone would be switched on and then the system waits to fill that one before activating the following one, and so on. As a result of strategies such as those outlined above, the building continues to operate at about 50 percent of the energy consumption of similar structures. For MAS and Rastogi these strategies were a result of personal interest being translated into company philosophy. He says, he appreciates being able to design a building from scratch because it is possible to incorporate passive energy saving elements into the original plans and then save money over the whole building life cycle. the importance of FM Rastogi says that despite great system and building design, no comprehensive handover process caused glitches in the systems. A year after completion MAS discovered that the building systems were being overridden by the outsourced FMs, who didn’t understand how to operate them or even know their original purpose. “They were operating it like a normal building”, says Rastogi. “We feel, with pride and satisfaction that the objective of creating a very healthy, peaceful and efficient work place for all our employees under one roof has been achieved.” Rastogi was keen to emphasise this point - not understanding who will be operating the building after the project team moves out is not to understand the project. However, in this case, there was a happy ending. MAS designers heard about the problem and went back to the premiseis, sat down with the FM team from CBRE and developed a manual on the structure and purpose of the building. In addition, they provided hands on training about the systems, how they work and for what purpose. This way, next time a senior manager forgets to bring their card and gets reception to let them in, their office will still be cool and ready on arrival, and can be deactivated for to save energy when they leave. For projects completed since, MAS has worked closely with FMs to produce even better results, says Rastogi. For a recent one mil sqf project in Mumbai the FMs “contributed a lot of valuable input and information on all areas, from cleaning, maintenance, housekeeping”, as well as other areas related to building services. the future of project management The biggest lesson for Rastogi and the MAS team was that design is one thing, but quality project management in India still needs to go through some developmental stages. In his opinion, the construction industry is “low tech and disorganised” and the project manager has to deal with the fact that delivering projects on time and to the requisite quality will be a struggle. With the reality and construction boom there will be more headaches to come - the number of projects means that the human resources may not be available to support the increased construction activity. Kanwar too found that the biggest challenges in the project, were “Meeting the time lines and exacting quality standards and adherence to aesthetic requirements.” On the other hand, he was overall very pleased with the outcome, saying that what made him happiest was that the “final product came out as most efficient, aesthetically good, intelligent and the most congenial work place”. The main goals the company had in mind when constructing this facility were met. “We feel, with pride and satisfaction that the objective of creating a very healthy, peaceful and efficient work place for all our employees under one roof has been achieved” he says. RFP
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Key title: RFP magazine
Abbreviated key title: RFP mag.
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