Located in central business district of Bengaluru city, Icon was envisioned to be a landmark  building at the heart of the city which would grab one’s attention immediately. The site is tucked in between commercial and residential buildings on either sides and faces a busy road towards the south. The site area is approximately 19,200 Sft and the built-up area around 60,000 Sft.

The brief from the client who is a renowned developer was to create a unique building that would strictly adhere to the local byelaws and be climate responsive in order to have maximum building performance for the end user.

Since the building has a south facing façade, we introduced lightweight vertical aluminum sections to form the building skin. The vertical fins are placed along the curved slab profiles that open out as balconies to the lush landscape and tree canopies on the opposite side. The form for the façade was aimed to maximize area and the balconies were introduced towards the road side. Based on this the curved slabs were introduced to respond to the context which would capture views to the outside, as well as provide a skin to cut down the harsh southern light and reduce the solar heat gain on the building.

The planning of the building is relatively simple and has an open floor plan with 2 circulation cores on either side of the building diagonal to each other. Every floor has access to the curved balconies that capture panoramic views on the outside and act as spill over spaces for the user. The placement of the vertical fins also creates an interesting play of light and shadow through the day. At the fourth-floor level a double height space was carved out to house a large tree that would complement the green foliage around the site. Through adapting various sustainable design aspects and technology into the building, Icon achieved IGBC gold certification.