Mumbai
1970–83

In Bombay a building has to be oriented east-west to catch the prevailing sea-breezes, and to open up the best views in the city: the Arabian Sea on one side and the harbour on the other. But these unfortunately are also the directions of the hot sun and the heavy monsoon rains. The old bungalows solved these problems by wrapping a protective layer of verandahs around the main living areas, thus providing the occupants with two lines of defence against the elements.

Kanchanjunga, an attempt to apply these principles to a high-rise building, is a condominium of 32 luxury apartments of four different types, varying from 3 to 6 bedrooms each. The interlock of these variations are expressed externally by the shear end walls that hold up the cantilevers. The tower has a proportion of 1:4 (being 21 metres square and 84 metres high). Its minimalist unbroken surfaces are cut away to open up the double-height terrace gardens at the corners, thus revealing (through the interlocking form and colour) some hint of the complex spatial organisation of living spaces that lie within the tower.