Tuesday 14 June 2016

Executive Education Center for Harvard Business School, Mumbai

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Location Mumbai, India
Client Indian Hotels Company Limited, Taj Lands End
BUA 4,000 Sq. Ft
Value Rs. 12 Crores
Status Construction Phase
Completion February, 2012
Role Project Management

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The project is a result of endowment presented to the Harvard Business School by Mr. Ratan Tata in Boston.

The HBS Executive Education Center is the first one in India by Harvard and is situated in the Taj Lands End Hotel, Bandra, Mumbai. They have similar classrooms in China and Israel.

The project essentially comprised of interior remodeling of the area identified within the Taj Lands End Hotel, which was originally the gym, to create an 82 seater classroom and a pre-function area.

The heart of the classroom, is the high-end AV/ IT systems being used. The AV systems were imported and fully assembled and pre-programmed from the US and integrated here in Mumbai by a team of Technical Consultants specially flown in from Boston.

The classroom is designed as a studio and has to meet the stringent NC-25 acoustical requirements which are achieved by specially insulating the area including the HVAC systems.

A major portion of the classroom’s millwork was fabricated by the Project’s Lead Designer’s- Baker Design Group approved vendors in China and imported and installed by their own team here.

The idea was to replicate a typical Harvard classroom, including the exact positioning of controls etc so that any professors flying in from Boston would be perfectly comfortable in the classroom, with no downtime or learning curve to understand the functioning of the classroom or the equipment.

The project which was inaugurated by Mr. Ratan Tata, himself was deemed to be a resounding success with Harvard recognizing it as the best executive education classroom globally.

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HBS Work in Progress

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HBS AV Controls

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HBS Inauguration

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HBS Finished Classroom

 
To know more about Masters PMC, visit - www.masterspmc.com

Contact us - +91 22 64567600

Indian School of Business, Hyderabad

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Permanent Faculty Housing

The existing campus of ISB, originally contained ten housing units for Permanent Faculty Housing. Each of these is a ground plus one storied (G+1) structure.
The unit at the ground level was a 3-bedroom apartment and the unit at the first floor was split into one 2-bedroom apartment and one 1-bedroom apartment. However, in due course of time, ISB converted most units to 3-bedroom units, based on the faculty requirements.

The design brief for the additional units for Permanent Faculty Housing was initially to develop one unit of G+1 height. This would contain only 3-bedroom apartments at both floors.

Keeping in mind the fact that the ISB campus has a distinct character, which must be retained, the representatives of ISB were certain that the footprint of the buildings and their outer profile and appearance was to be the same as the existing units.

Internally, the design should be modified to optimize the usage of spaces and eliminate the flaws in structure and services in the existing plan. Substitution of materials, in certain areas could be considered for aesthetic/ value-engineering purposes but the basic layout should not be very different from the existing units.

After the initial design presentation processes, ISB suggested that the number of apartments needs to be increased from the original 4 units to 20 units. After further discussion with the representatives of ISB and the ISB building committee, it was agreed that rather than encourage a horizontal spread of G+1 units, which could not be contained to one part of the present site, it would be more prudent to add an additional floor and develop 6 units as G+2.

The buildings were oriented so as to keep in mind the established logic of ‘mirrored’ layouts, with service staircase common to two adjacent units.

For the third set of units, there were two layout options developed – (i) with separate servant’s staircase to the rear of the plot, (ii) with combined servant’s staircase between two units.

Design & Planning

The footprint of the existing units, were to be retained as far as possible. Given this requirement, plus the Clients’ observation that the toilet ducts were inaccessible leading to maintenance issues, the footprint was stretched slightly to accommodate the ducts, within the verandah, so that the elevation remained undisturbed.

On review of the existing apartments, the following observations were made:

1. Kitchen has no natural light & ventilation
2. Toilet ducts are inaccessible leading to maintenance issues – as also confirmed by the Clients’.
3. Large boxed columns are protruding into the rooms due to an awkward structural grid.
4. Inefficient circulation pattern, was affecting spatial efficiency of the living room.
5. Study area, as an offset of the living room, was not receiving the air-conditioning benefit. Also more privacy for study was required.
6. Natural light and ventilation to the living room of the apartments in the upper floors is restricted since the balcony fenestrations are limited.
7. Two store rooms, accessible only from the verandah at the ground floor are not commonly used.
8. The trash room, accessible from the rear verandah, is not required and can be better used.
9. As per the Clients’, the data cabling room was also not required.
10. Clear height of the apt was found to be even less than 9ft.

Based on these observations, the plan was modified to improve the efficiency, and functionality of the spaces without disturbing the existing aesthetic.

Apart from the overall planning, architecture and interiors, the MEP services and structural design was also undertaken by Masters and after review and approval of ISB’s Peer Review Consultant, eventually implemented at site on a Guaranteed Maximum Price contract, awarded to Masters.
Thus this project was the first executed by Masters as part of the “Project Development Management” offering, wherein Clients, if they so choose, can appoint Masters as their single point of contact for design, construction and delivery within a clearly established budget and timelines.

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Existing Plan
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Proposed Plan
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Improvements in Building Services

 
To know more about Masters PMC, visit - www.masterspmc.com

Contact us - +91 22 64567600

Monday 13 June 2016

World Environment Day Celebration

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"World Environment Day (WED) is observed every year on 5 June to raise global awareness to take positive environmental action to protect nature and the planet Earth. It is the most important day for encouraging worldwide awareness and action for the protection of our environment. On this day, communities and individuals around the world work to increase awareness of the importance of conserving the environment, the positive global impact of environmental regulations and controls and engage in activities that serve to educate and improve their environment locally.

We at Masters too celebrated World Environment Day at KSMS Project Site, Jamshedpur"

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 Introduction Speech Delivered by Mr. Avijit Kundu (Senco India)
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Environment Related Speech Delivered By Mr. Deepanjan Sahoo ( Masters)

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 Plantation By Team Members

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Best Safety Conscious Worker Mr. Uttam Rajak is awarded by Mr. Mrinal Chakraborty

To know more about Masters PMC, visit - www.masterspmc.com

Contact us - +91 22 64567600

Friday 10 June 2016

Ganjam Bangalore wins the Prix Versailles!!

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Culture and commercial architecture: two domains that are often depicted as contradictory. Indeed, commerce is associated with utilitarian functionalism, immediacy, playing it safe, and an impoverished style.

Whilst culture is associated with beauty, creativity and a disinterested ideal. Naturally, this opposition is not systematic, and there are many high quality examples of their coexistence. However, such examples remain a rarity. The end goal of the Prix Versailles is to alter this state of affairs by merging these opposites together. This years’ awards recognised 9 projects from around the world with a Special Mention for Ganjam, Bangalore, a project for which we are proud to be associated as PMC.

Some images of the store and the ceremony with Mr. Umesh Ganjam and Ms. Cecile Buhagiar of RDAI designers accepting the award at the UNECO Headquarters at Paris.

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Ganjam Prix Versailles 
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We extend our heartiest congratulations to our Client, who stuck to their vision, to develop a truly iconic flagship retail space which like their jewellery is a unique, refined, elegant, beautifully crafted and culturally significant end-product!!!

 
To know more about Masters PMC, visit - www.masterspmc.com

Contact us - +91 22 64567600

Tuesday 17 May 2016

RESIDENTIAL DESIGN: THINKING OUT OF THE BOX

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Riverdale is a large-scale residential Project by Duville Estates located along the banks of Mula-Mutha River with a picturesque view. It is spread over 31 acres of land and will be constructed in three different plots – under the name of Riverdale Heights comprising of 1BHK & 2BHK apartments, Riverdale Residences – 2 & 3 BHK apartments and Duplexes and Riverdale Grand – 4 BHK & 5 BHK residential apartments.

The ongoing phase of Riverdale Heights, a 8.84 lakh sqft development, in a plot of 4.04 acres comprising of ground, three levels of parking and 5 towers of 23 habitable floors each. Altogether, 590 flats with club house, double height banquet hall, gym, childrens’ play area, tennis & badminton courts, swimming pool with glass canopy, floating pod etc as amenities.

The infrastructure and utilities consists of solar powered common area lighting, reticulated gas system, treated water for both domestic and flushing purposes, organic waste converter, closed circuit TV in common areas, data and telephone connections in rooms, power back-up, kitchen cabinet/ modular kitchen and a landscaped podium etc.

The uniqueness of this project is its glass facade i.e. curtain glazing at one face of every bed room & living room, giving a feel of a strong connection to the external views and natural landscape beyond. The façade is further articulated with ACP ribbons and various types of louvers and metal screens.

MASTERS has been associated with this project in the month of May 2015 when the scheme design had already been substantially frozen and advanced to a detailed design stage. It was thus a considerable challenge for the team to take control over the scheme of things midway and meet the various aspirations of the Client, one of which was to carry the project swiftly to the tender stage while adhering to a stringent construction budget.

MASTERS within a very short period of time, undertook a detailed assessment of the design and put a detailed cost plan in place, thereby triggering a concern about the big gap between the anticipated cost of the project as against the Client’s budget. This in turn had all the stakeholders of the project convinced about the need for a strong value engineering exercise.

The value engineering work, which was coordinated by MASTERS commenced with a detailed review of first principles of space planning and traversed almost every area of the project ranging from structural design, finishing, MEP services, external development, procurement strategies, including getting quotes from all major items from market and also identifying the items to be outsourced etc.

The aim being to bring about a cost reduction without affecting the Client’s intent to have a flagship project, which would please customers and establish their brand.

Some of the initiatives which were implemented included :

1) Space planning interventions including - re-evaluation of the design of a lobby to improve the efficiency of the car park with an overall reduction of 3780 sq.ft.; reallocation of services to release a pocket of approximately 5,909 sq.ft spread over three parking floors for car parks; modifying the typical lobby area to save approximately 11,244 sq.ft.; shifting the fire refuge area outside the building footprint increasing number of saleable units.

2) Structural design interventions, including – standardization of wall thickness, conversion of compound wall, planter walls, landscape walls, storm water drain to either plum concrete or brickwork from earlier RCC walls; converting a huge fill over the podium from light weight filling to sand filling as the design had not factored the difference of soft-scape and hard-scape areas, re-utilization of excavated rocks in plum concrete, soling below roads etc.

3) Finishing – Optimization of finishes, including for external development.

4) MEP Services – review of the load calculations etc thus effecting a reduction in the number of transformers, undertaking a traffic study and market study to optimize the design of elevators, review of security and fire systems with improvements in some instances.

With this out-of-the box approach, the team comprising MASTERS and other project stakeholders was able to bring about a reduction of approximately 15% in the overall project estimate with the value management exercise still in progress. This in itself is a formidable achievement against a stringent initial budget, which is sure to assist our Client in its endeavour to establish a formidable brand in the highly competitive housing market in Pune.

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To know more about Masters PMC, visit - www.masterspmc.com

Contact us - +91 22 64567600