Developed with project partners Kirby Smith, Lucas Bodgett, and Jessica Gameros for the cross-disciplinary Design and Development studio, the Terraces are a mixed-use destination where we integrate lifestyle, retail, and residential with a natural environment for the people of Mumbai to enjoy. With the architecture, we are sculpting a space that emulates canyons and terraces, offering the residents and the public a unique experience at every turn. The design for the central greenway is intended so that a daytime visitor could pursue curated retail spaces, observe the sustainable landscaping, and experience technology and innovations.

GOALS

1.  Push the possibilities of development and architecture.

2. Achieve exemplary environmental performance for lasting resilience.

3. Build a landmark for Godrej, our industry partner, to showcase their legacy of sustainable innovation.

4. Reflect Mumbai’s cultural and ecological context.

To pursue our intentions, we developed a modular structural and formal logic, which, when expressed, creates signature immersive environments that merge the built architecture with the performative structured ground. This modular logic was deployed systematically to meet the constraints of the site while flexibly responding to the varying programmatic demands.

The public greenway is lined by retail amenities that conceal the parking podiums behind. Each phase of residential development includes its own signature pool and clubhouse complex, while the civic amenities contain their own outdoor spaces. The civic amenities are positioned along the public greenway. Starting from left to right, the Terraces feature an exhibit of Godrej’s legacy of innovation, a primary school to serve the residents, and a business-facing maker space and innovation center.

We created our development plan across four phases designed to make a compelling mixed-use community while generating attractive returns for Godrej Properties. Based on our analysis, given that residential and office clearly deliver the most net profit, we allocated a total of 93% of our program towards them (55% residential, 38% office). We decided to do 4% retail to have a sufficient enough amount of stores and restaurants to make the neighborhood an attractive place to be. The 3% civic is strategically done to to build on our project’s theme of advancing the possibilities of sustainable architecture and development.

We started off Phase 1 to be smaller and less time consuming than Phases 2 & 3, so that we could more quickly (a) validate our concept with relatively less time and financial investment and (b) generate cash flows from the heavier residential skew (at 59% of Phase 1) to feed into subsequent equity for latter phases thus minimizing our peak equity outflow. The cash flows from Phase 1 also allow us to invest more in office, retail, and civic in our largest Phases 2 & 3. In the end, during Phase 4, we seek to capture the value from our placemaking investments of Phases 1-3 with high-end residential (96% of Phase 4) and high-end retail.

Here you can see the plan of the first floor above the parking podium. To accommodate our terracedmassing, each residential tower includes a cavernous indoor-outdoor atrium that expands and contracts in size, starting at its largest size on this level. In the mid level floorplan, we see that the inner atrium hascontracted to allow the overall massing to step back from the terraces below.

If we zoom into this plan, we can see that each bedroom and living room has windows facing out towards the terraces. A screen of vertical louvers envelops the residential tower to unify its massing and provide privacy to residents. The louvers are coated with titanium dioxide to absorb carbon dioxide and improveatmospheric quality. The 45 degree rotation of our global grid and the privacy fins direct views pastadjacent apartment units and enables longer exterior perimeters to capture those views.

In the Inner Canyons, the residents will receive a unique experience, being a part of a community with a lot of green spaces, unhindered views to the interior terrace space, and the mangroves. The amenities area for the residents includes a pool, clubhouse, and green open spaces for recreation.