New York
1985-1992

The site, just down the road, from the UN Headquarters in New York, consists of two Manhattan city-blocks connecting adjacent streets, forming a narrow strip of land 60 metres long, with a frontage of 12 metres along 43rd St. and a mere 6.3 metres along 44th St. Into this crevice had to be inlaid a complex programme of offices for the Permanent Mission of India and an Exhibition Gallery (with direct access from 44th St.) located in the four levels of the podium, surmounted by a tower with residential accommodation for five different categories of staff, ranging from the security personnel (15.5 sq. metres each) to the Dy. Consul General (200 sq. metres in a triplex apartment with terrace gardens, at the top of the building). This wide range of apartment sizes were all accommodated in the same envelope (a tower 14 metres wide and 15.5 metres deep), wrapped in a taut metal panelled skin. The larger apartments at the top are interlocking duplexes somewhat like the Kanchanjunga Apartments in Bombay (1960-83), but with the double height areas glass-enclosed (so as to remain useable in the North American winters).