^ The stunning Naga Towers. All pics in this article courtesy ECADI Architects and GIFT

As fitting a tower designed to push the boundaries of futurist Indian architecture, great care and thought has been put into the symbolism and design of these commercial towers as in India’s traditional architecture. It will be among the tallest and most striking towers in GIFT’s 80+ skyscraper skyline.

^ Snakes!!
^^ On a tower!!!!!!!

——==–=–==——-

First, some background on the GIFT project:

Located at Gandhinagar, the capital city of the über-industrial Indian state of Gujarat, and nearby the state’s commercial capital of Ahmedabad, the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City will be one of the world’s largest and most modern financial hubs.

From its already lofty original development goals, GIFT has since grown manifold to literally an entire city’s central business district that will be larger than Paris’s La Defense, Tokyo’s Shinjuku, London’s Dockyards and Shanghai’s Pudong financial districts. It will house over a million people with millions more commuting there daily.

Well placed between the political and commercial capitals of Gujarat, GIFT is a public-private partnership basically designed to kick Mumbai in the FDI balls and establish itself as a world player. It will is India’s first major supertall Central Business District project that is designed to be the focal point of both the world’s and India’s booming financial services market by providing companies with all those things Mumbai is still developing: comprehensive infrastructure, power, verticalized office space, and a well designed, planned and expandable urban form. Its strong proximity and infrastructure connectivity with Mumbai ensures that mutually beneficial development occurs between the two metros.

^ An overhead view of the new GIFT CBD.

The scale of GIFT is singularly massive, unparalleled in the world except a handful of Dubai megaprojects, none of those which can hold a candle to GIFT’s goals of economic sustainability, integration and scalability.

Gujarat International Finance Tec-City will have 312 tall buildings — the tallest being the signature Diamond Tower with 87 floors; another 40 buildings with more than 50 floors and many more with 24 plus floors of height. The entire project is not only fully approved but already completely sold out due to insane demand. Construction will begin later this year.

For more information on GIFT as a whole, please check out the GIFT thread in General Urban Developments forum for a summary of the main developments and the GIFT thread in the SSC India forum for more detailed discussions.

——==–=–==——-

In order to explain the relevance of the Naga Towers’ design, one must first explain the Symbolism attached to the Naga itself.

The Naga, or snake, plays an integral part of India’s cultural ethos, philosophies, traditions and religions. Reverence of the Naga as the the anthropomorphic symbol of spiritual truth and energy dates back to the dawn of civilization in India and has spread throughout Asia with the spread of Hindu and Buddhist symbols.

The symbolism attached to the Naga is extensive. The coiled body of the serpant rising represents the symbolic rising of the Kundalini, or spiritual energy, and the many heads represent a manifold seemingly disparate perceptions of reality actually unified in form, and the the hooded head represents the mastery emotion and materialism.

In Indian architecture, as well as in the Hindu and Buddhist architecture of southeast Asia, its influence of the Naga on art and architecture can be seen back from its Harappan-Saraswati cities and to the present day. It is this powerful symbol of the Naga that has been re-interpreted in commercial-use Naga Towers.

^ Naga Towers from above

Noting the tremendous “recall value [of the Naga] as a part of popular culture” and Indian architecture, the designers of GIFT decided that a modern interpretation on this ancient symbol would befit such a far-reaching project.

The snakelike design is evident even from a cursory look at the building. According to ECADI architects, “the springing and leaping action of the snake is reflected in the form of the buildings in a symbolic indication of awareness and vitality.” The inspiration doesn’t end there, as the Naga “concept of duality and contradiction is represented in the double motif that eventually join to make one building.”

In Indian and Southeast Asian architecture, the statue of the Naga is placed flanking the entryways of the city, the temple and the sanctum sanctorum of the temple, symbolically guarding the approach to a higher spiritual truth. Taking a cue from this, the Naga Towers are directly situated on the Dream River waterfront, the dominating the main water approaches to the CBD.

^ The GIFT skyline, with Naga Towers on the far left.

The towers will be commercial in use and rise to a maximum height of 230 meters and 54 stories tall. Its total above-ground and below-ground areas are 4,704,000 and 1,927,500 sq ft respectively and will be developed as Block Package O in the master plan.

The tower has been completely approved by all governing and oversight bodies and will be constructed in the first phase of the project. Construction is expected to begin later this year, but may be put on hold if more redesigns/upscaling of the project is in the offing.

Keep it skyscrapery
-Felonious Vindaloo

… for lots more more information on the project, including renderings and prerenderings of the towers, read on!

——==–=–==——-

Before I go on about the Diamond Tower, its necessary to give some background on the GIFT project itself:

Located at Gandhinagar, the capital city of the über-industrial Indian state of Gujarat, and nearby the state’s commercial capital of Ahmedabad, the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City will be one of the world’s largest and most modern financial hubs.

From its already lofty original development goals, GIFT has since grown manifold to literally an entire city’s central business district that will be larger than Paris’s La Defense, Tokyo’s Shinjuku, London’s Dockyards and Shanghai’s Pudong financial districts. It will house over a million people with millions more commuting there daily.

Well placed between the political and commercial capitals of Gujarat of Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad respectively, GIFT is a public-private partnership basically designed to kick Mumbai in the FDI balls and establish itself as a world player. It is India’s first major supertall Central Business District project that is designed to be the focal point of both the world’s and India’s booming financial services market by providing companies with all those things Mumbai is still developing: comprehensive infrastructure, power, verticalized office space, and a well designed, planned and expandable urban form. Its strong proximity and infrastructure connectivity with Mumbai ensures that mutually beneficial development occurs between the two metros..

^ An overhead view of the new GIFT CBD. Only half the planned buildings are shown in the above rendering

Located on block –(or in GIFT development parlance “Package”, in reference to each site being a separate instance of public-private development partnerships)-- “Package E”, the three towers are designed by Shanghai-based ECADI architects, the master planners of many of Shanghai’s newest projects, will be fully commercial in use, which will make them amongst tallest commercial projects in India.

^ A prerendering of the towers, which better shows the design

The tallest of the three buildings will stand at 65 floors, and the other two at 60 floors. But interestingly enough, the tallest element of the project, a spire, is actually located on one of the smaller, flanking buildings.

^ The towers can be seen on the left side of the skyline

The tower has been completely approved by all governing and oversight bodies and will be constructed in the first phase of the project. Construction is expected to begin later this year, but may be put on hold if more redesigns/upscaling of the project is in the offing.

^ A beautifully faceted showpiece supertall, the Diamond Tower on the Gift Waterfront. All pics in this article courtesy ECADI Architects and GIFT

Before I go on about the Diamond Tower, its necessary to give some background on the GIFT project itself:

Located at Gandhinagar, the capital city of the über-industrial Indian state of Gujarat, and nearby the state’s commercial capital of Ahmedabad, the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City will be one of the world’s largest and most modern financial hubs.

From its already lofty original development goals, GIFT has since grown manifold to literally an entire city’s central business district that will be larger than Paris’s La Defense, Tokyo’s Shinjuku, London’s Dockyards and Shanghai’s Pudong financial districts. It will house over a million people with millions more commuting there daily.

Well placed between the political and commercial capitals of Gujarat of Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad respectively, GIFT is a public-private partnership basically designed to kick Mumbai in the FDI balls and establish itself as a world player. It is India’s first major supertall Central Business District project that is designed to be the focal point of both the world’s and India’s booming financial services market by providing companies with all those things Mumbai is still developing: comprehensive infrastructure, power, verticalized office space, and a well designed, planned and expandable urban form. Its strong proximity and infrastructure connectivity with Mumbai ensures that mutually beneficial development occurs between the two metros..

The scale of GIFT is singularly massive, unparalleled in the world except a handfull of Dubai megaprojects, none of those which can hold a candle to GIFT’s goals of economic sustainability, integration and scalability.

Gujarat International Finance Tec-City will have 312 tall buildings — the tallest being the signature Diamond Tower with 87 floors; another 40 buildings with more than 50 floors and many more with 24 plus floors of height. The entire project is not only fully approved but already completely sold out due to insane demand. Construction will begin later this year.

For more information on GIFT as a whole, please check out the GIFT thread in General Urban Developments forum for a summary of the main developments and the GIFT thread in the SSC India forum for more detailed discussions.

——==–=–==——-

OK, now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the majestic Diamond Tower

… for tons more more information, renderings, details and images of the other proposed designs to GIFT and the tower, read on!

^ Diamond Tower seen from the view corridor over one of GIFT’s many greenbelts

Designed by ECADI Architects, the master planners of many of Shanghai’s newest projects, Diamond Tower was designed as the centerpiece signature tower that will cap the new GIFT CBD skyline. The tower is called “The Diamond Tower” to mark Gujarat state’s eminence as the diamond capital of the world. It takes its design cues from the cut facets of a traditional Indian-cut diamond and is a tip of the hat to the state’s diamond industry, which had initially fueled much of Gujarat’s industrialization and still remains a huge economic stimulus to the state.

^ A closeup of the Diamond Tower’s diamond-like crown.

The Diamond Tower is designed to convey both the brightness and shape of the diamond. The various cuts and facets in the tower’s shape are designed to reflect and refract the light on the tower similar to a cut diamond, helping it achieve its goal of being one of the world’s brightest and most eye-catching towers when it catches the light of the sun..

t is the only tower located on block (or in GIFT development parlance “Package”, in reference to each site being a separate instance of public-private development partnerships) “Package D“, the only tower package on Fortune Island, which also will have a huge waterfront public green space as well as a museum and convention center. The tower will be accessible by foot by a bridge spanning the river as well as the gamut of GIFT’s public transport system..

^ The location of the old design Diamond Tower to the old GIFT city plan

^ More views of the old design of the Diamond Tower

THowever, after the office space of the original GIFT master plan completely sold out less than a week after its opening it was realized that even this huge project severely underestimated the demand for high-quality commercial development in Gujarat. Thus, all the buildings went through a major redesign, scaled upward in both mass and in height — the signature Diamond Tower being no exception.

^ The new design of the Diamond Tower framed by the new Gateway Towers

After sifting through tens of proposals by ECADI, the private-public development consortium finally chose the new design of the Diamond Tower. The new tower is significantly taller, with 87 floors and a 400 meter height (possibly higher if one counts the crown as a spire.) The impression the tower gives is that of a rock-solid jewel rising over a much more aggressive and massive skyline, rather than the delicate crystal shard complementing an equally visually delicate skyline of the older design plan.

^ The Diamond Tower, Gateway Towers and Crystal Towers

The tower has been completely approved by all governing and oversight bodies and will be constructed in the first phase of the project. Construction is expected to begin later this year, but may be put on hold if more redesigns/upscaling of the project is in the offing.

-Felonious Vindaloo

^ Standing (very) tall at 85 stories, Raheja Platinum
Pic courtesy K Raheja Universal

Located in Upper Worli (aka Lower Parel), Raheja Platinum will rub shoulders with a slew of supertalls and skyscrapers that represent the transformation of old textile mill land to worldclass real estate.

For more information, location maps and renderings of the other proposed designs to the tower, read on!

Mumbai’s skyscraper boom has almost entirely consisted of residential highrise development. The reasons for these are many, but namely because residential skyscrapers, especially with integrated retail, hospitality, and anemities, produce far less strain on infrastructure than their purely commercial counterparts, whose workers would all need to commute to the tower every day. Secondly, for the longest time, India’s banking, service, R&D and IT companies preferred glassy, sprawling lowrise campuses — more of a college campus look and feel — than towers.

With infrastructure redevelopment now likewise booming in Mumbai, coupled with a change in corporate culture, the future landmark skyscraper projects proposed in Mumbai are increasingly commercial in nature. Leading this change from the front is one of Mumbai’s largest real estate developers, K Raheja Universal, who are actively promoting commercial skyscraper construction as a necessity for Mumbai, and the only way to halt sprawl.

Their signature commercial tower project that they have implied in interviews over the years, Raheja Platinum, actually originally started off as a rather modest proposal of only 40 floors.

^ The original 40 floor, glass faceted design from 2007
Pic courtesy K Raheja Universal

But with a slew of commercial supertall construction announced in a number major Indian metros outside of Mumbai, and in the Raheja Universial company habit of suddenly upscaling their projects in height and design right before groundbreaking, K Raheja Universal surprised all Indian skyscraper watchers when they suddenly redesigned Platinum to almost double its height to 80 stories.

^ The newer 80 floor tower announced in early 2008.
Pic courtesy K Raheja Universal

This was BIG news. It was the difference from having a pretty cool looking, but ultimately kind of dwarfish commerical tower that, overshadowed by residential towers, would only be visible from certain areas of the city to a game changing height and design that would leave a lasting mark on the entire of Mumbai’s skyline.

Raheja platinum suddenly became one of those signature towers that defines a city and its skyline.

Fellow ISB member Indiansunite edited a couple maps that show Raheja Platinum’s location in relation to other signature towers coming up in the area.

^ Location on Google Maps

^ A quick edit of K Raheja Universal’s own location map
Pic courtesy K Raheja Universal

Judging from K Rraheja Universal’s habit of spastically redesigning of their buildings, this may not even be the final design or height

-FV

^ Ahuja Towers
Pic courtesy P&T Group and Atelier ADT architects

The project features a 10-story carpark with a pool and amenities on top, extensive greenery and has its first condo starting on the 14th floor, guaranteeing spectacular panoramic views of Mumbai and the Indian Ocean.

For more information and renderings of the other proposed designs to the tower, read on!

The design of the concrete and steel tower was developed from three preliminary proposals, with the last one being the basis for the final design.

^ The three design proposals, all variations on the same theme. The third one forms the basis of the final design.
Pics courtesy P&T Group

The towers are expected to be completed by 2010.

-FV

^ RNA 360, in all its pre-rendered glory
Pic courtesy RNA Builders

About several months ago, a very unique-looking tower appeared on Mumbai Property Exchange. No information was given on builder, location or architect. This was then posted in Skyscrapercity’s Mumbai Project Update thread. The rendering showed a 30 floor tower whose design appears to be a natural extension to the organic “plant stalk” design trend in new Mumbai buildings (probably most visibly exemplified by Indiabulls’s Jupiter Mills Tower in nearby Parel.)

^ Big-brother Stalky, Jupiter Mills Tower (left), also coming up in Mumbai
Pic courtesy FXFowle and Indiabulls

After RNA Builders updated their website, it was revealed that they were the builders behind the project, and that it was (apty) called RNA 360, presumably for the 360 degree view of the Indian Ocean and Mumbai skyline it will afford its tenants.

For more information, about this project read on!…

The 30 story tower, similar in idea to Calatrava’s canceled 80 South Street proposal for New York city, features curved balconies jutting out on every other floor from the central core of the building. The tower’s location will not only make it super eye-catching from the street, but will offer its tenants some fantastic views of Mumbai and the growing Worli neighborhood skyline and the ocean.

^ Distant cousin, NYC’s 80 South Street proposal
Pic courtesy Santiago Calatrava

Right now, not a whole lot is revealed about the project, and the released design is obviously a pre-rendering giving a basic idea of how the building will look. When more information comes out, I’ll keep you updated.

Watch this space!

-FV