Vipul SoodDetail Drawings & Design Portfolio, 2009

Façade strategy

While managing a three person team, out of a total of eighteen, my role was to collaborate with the architect to fully understand the façade strategy and design in-tent to ensure that it was correctly documented.

Bespoke designs on the street façade and the curvilin-ear ‘garden’ façade facing the inner courtyard meant we had to focus intensely on detail design even during the early stages of the project.

9m wide by 3m high bays consisting of 1.5m wide unitised window modules set within a bronze frame ar-ticulate the street façade. The garden façade is clad in reconstituted curved stone with facetted glazing units used for fenestration.

Client: Make Architects, 2008Project: Noho Square, 95 000m² development of upmarket offices, shops and 273 homesLocation: London, United Kingdom

Façade strategy

Interesting features of the ‘garden’ façade were the cantilevering balconies. Designed to flow into or out of the façade, the balconies’ balustrades were made from reconstituted curved stone – the same material used to clad the entire garden façade.

The stone modules had varying widths depending on their location in the façade and the setting out geom-etry at that point. Structurally the e balcony deck was to be precast and then fixed to the floor slab through a splice at two points.

Client: Make Architects, 2008Project: Noho Square, 95 000m² development of upmarket offices, shops and 273 homesLocation: London, United Kingdom

Details

These details document various conditions on the street façade. The architect’s focus was on the interface between the ground and first floor. The slanting bronze fascia panel broke the façade’s bay wise articulation and distinguished the residential units on the first floor and above from the commercial units on the lower ground and ground floors.

Client: Make Architects, 2008Project: Noho Square, 95 000m² development of upmarket offices, shops and 273 homesLocation: London, United Kingdom

External wall sections

The twisting and tapering profile of the building created complex and unique conditions. Columns of varying slants and sizes, depending on their location, added to the challenge of documenting the design. My role was to develop wall sections in collaboration with the archi-tects. We shared responsibility by working on the same drawings by leveraging the time difference between New Delhi and New York.

Stainless steel clad canopy

The architect’s focus was on ensuring the canopy was structurally sound and the drainage system was effec-tive. My role was to develop these details based on her instructions. I was able to contribute to this process by highlighting problem areas and suggesting solutions. The client made special mention of this and commend-ed me for the work I did.

Client: KPF, 2007Project: North East Asia Trade Tower, 365m skyscraper containing offices, a hotel and apartmentsLocation: New Songdo City, South Korea

Holiday Home

The brief required the creation of warm yet open spaces that maximised natural lighting and ventilation. This was achieved by conceiving the home as a whole and carv-ing spaces out of it based on activity and function. This reduced the need for separating walls and the spatial identity achieved created warmth yet retained an aura of openness. It also led to the creation of courtyards and gardens which were fully exploited to increase nat-ural light and ventilation.

Client: Retired Couple, 2007-2008Project: 300m² Holiday homeLocation: New Delhi, India

SGA – Sandeep Geeta & Associates

This sheet presents various design projects I worked on during my apprenticeship. They include design propos-als for a farm house and photographs of sites I managed; an office refurbishment and a furniture showroom. Much of my design attempts to engage the natural or existing environment in which a building is set. This can be spatially as in the holiday home, materially as in my university project or through form as presented in these design proposals on this sheet.

Client: Various, 2006Project: VariousLocation: New Delhi, India

Final Year Project

My concept was to revive the existing buildings through dialogue with an intervention of sorts. Rather than de-sign a new building and place it on the site, I created a functional space by adding two façades to the front and rear of an open space that was demarcated at the sides by the external walls of the existing structures.

The front façade consists of frameless glass at the ground floor, supported by naturally inspired ‘spinal struts’ that I developed through independent re-search and patinated stainless steel panels fixed to a concrete shell on the first floor. The rear façade consists of timber cladding.

Throughout the project my focus was on energy effi-ciency. Solutions implemented include increasing the thermal mass by using a concrete shell for the structure and super insulation, a passive ventilation stack through the core, low e glass and a green roof.

Project: University, final year design project – revitalisation of a listed, disused 19th century warehouse, 2005Location: Cardiff, United Kingdom