A Next-Gen Business Park That Blurs the Line Between Campus and City
K Raheja Corp’s Commerzone Raidurg in Hyderabad is a next-generation IT and ITeS business park conceived as a social anchor for the city, combining multi-tenant office space with lifestyle amenities and green spaces across a nine-acre site. The development comprises 26,31,000 sq. ft. of leasable space, including a landscaped podium of 4.5 acres, which forms the heart of the campus.
Responding to the site’s gentle gradations, the design adopts an L-shaped form that sits in harmony with the preserved rocky outcrop and opens views to Durgam Cheruvu Lake. The campus adopts a design strategy of horizontal layering, in which programmes are stacked as interconnected strata rather than separated into discrete blocks. This approach connects and distinguishes functions at once, allowing public, semi-public, and workplace zones to flow vertically while retaining their own identities. An activated ground plane with a public promenade and a semi-public podium supports the 20-storey superstructure comprising two conjoined towers.
The architectural language reflects Hyderabad’s layered identity. Traditional motifs derived from the Charminar and Qutb Shahi Tombs are reinterpreted in the frit patterns of the façade, pergolas and interior elements. The plinth of the campus unfolds as a porous landscaped layer that invites people in from the city. Climatology studies of heat ranges and prevailing wind patterns informed its design, with water bodies—including shallow pools placed along wind corridors—to aid evaporative cooling and define key drop-off points. Planned bus bays connect to these areas via shaded walkways, ensuring comfortable access in all weather conditions.
Along the site frontage, a canopy of native trees, including Amaltas and Kachnar, provides shade and channels breezes across the site. Together with mist-cooling features, this planting strategy ensures outdoor comfort for most of the year. Experientially, the landscape draws inspiration from Hyderabad’s identity as the “City of Lakes.” Mimicking the irregular character of lake edges, the hardscape and softscape elements are articulated through jagged geometries rather than smooth, continuous curves. These patterns extend from the ground into the façade as reflections, blurring the boundary between the built form and the landscape.
Beyond the forested edge lies a retail strip lined with F&B kiosks, food carts, al fresco seating clusters, and triangular pergolas, activating a 30-metre-wide promenade integrated with a nine-metre-wide fire-tender loop. Geometric paving patterns abstracted from jaali motifs and shaded seating pockets punctuate the hardscape, while careful module planning for paving used off-cut granite to minimise waste. At the junction of the two towers, the landscape opens into a stepped amphitheatre for events, screenings, and informal meetings: strengthening the campus’s role as social infrastructure.
Perched above the plinth-level retail and landscaped plaza, the podium forms the next tier in the campus’s layered terrain. Spanning 4.5 acres at the first-floor level, it offers a variety of outdoor collaborative workspaces, including walk-meeting loops for uninterrupted discussions, quiet niches for focused solo work, and outdoor meeting spaces for team huddles of 8 to 15 people.
Circulation within the towers is optimised by centralised cores and high/low zone lift banks. Average vertical transport wait times are maintained between 25–28 seconds, supported by separate elevators for parking levels and refuge decks that also capitalise on lake views.
The project was conceived under the practice’s SOUL framework embedding sustainability as an intrinsic design driver. Building orientation - minimising western exposure while maximising northern and eastern glazing for daylight, and views combined with high-performance glazing to keep envelope loads within the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) of 45kWh/m²/yr. HVAC systems, vertical transport, and services have been independently designed for each tower to maintain operational autonomy. These interventions ensure that the project achieves significant energy efficiency improvements over ASHRAE baselines and has been awarded LEED Gold accreditation.
