Rahul Mehrotra is an Indian architect known for his sustainable designs that respond to local contexts. Some of his notable projects include a corporate office building in Hyderabad with a living green facade, a guest house set in a tea garden in Coonoor designed to minimize its footprint, and an "elephant village" housing project in Jaipur that regenerated a degraded landscape and brought an elephant community closer together through its design. Mehrotra's works emphasize using local materials and resources sustainably and creating designs that respond to environmental and social needs.

1. Modern Indian Architecture
RMA Architects
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Kumar Harsh – 15110010
Ramachandra Reddy – 15110012
Rishi Tiwari - 15110023

2. “ARCHITECTURE IS PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION OF ASPIRATIONS
OF SOCIETY.”
—RAHUL MEHROTRA
2

3. Professor of Urban Design
and Planning and Chair of
the Department of Urban
Planning and Design at the
Harvard Graduate School
of Design
Education
Bachelors at the School of Architecture, Ahmedabad
(CEPT), and graduated with a master’s degree with
distinction in Urban Design from the GSD(1987).
INTRODUCTION
Inspirations & Influences
Charles Correa and Doshi-Indian Architects
Claude Batley - British Architect
Major Areas of Interest
Conservation of heritage buildings, Urban Planning of
informally growing cities, Sustainable Development
3
Teaching & Positions
Executive Director of the Urban Design Research
Institute (1994-2004)
University of Michigan (2003–2007)
School of Architecture and Urban Planning at MIT
(2007–2010)

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Architect, professor,
academic, author and
researcher. His writings
include coauthoring
Bombay—The Cities Within.
Ongoing researches ‘The
Kumbh Mela – Mapping the
Ephemeral City’, theory on
‘Kinetic City’

5. “I took 9 years to complete my undergraduate
studies…| My undergraduate dissertation which
should have taken me six months took me four
years…”
FACT

6. Conservation
Projects
• Taj Mahal Visitor Centre
Agra, India (2000)
• Capela de Nossa Senhora do
Monte
Old Goa, India
• Restoration of the Oval
Maidan
Institutions &
Workplaces
• Magic bus campus
Navi Mumbai, India (2007)
• Visitors Centre CSMVS,
Mumbai, India (2011)
• KMC Corporate Office,
Hyderabad, India (2012)
• Lab of the future
Basel, Switzerland (2015)
Housing
• House in a Tea garden
Conoor, India (2008)
• Think Tank Retreat
Goa, India, 2009
• HaathiGaon
Amer, Jaipur, India (2010)
• Two house 2
Chennai, India, (2014)
PROJECTS RMA Architects, was founded in 1990 in Mumbai and has designed
and executed projects for clients that include government and
non-governmental agencies, corporate as well as private
individuals and institutions.
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Plot Area : 3918 m2
Floors : 5
KMC corporate office
Hyderabad, India (2012)

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• Located in Cyber city,
Hyderbad.
• Quite Isolated and still
developing, not many
buildings around.
• Requires a more intense
shading mechanism.
• Idea of double skin façade to
allow modulation of air and
light

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• The inner skin - reinforced
concrete frame with commonly
used aluminum windows.
• The outer façade - custom cast
aluminum trellis with hydroponic
(grow plants without use of soil)
trays integrated for growing a
variety of plant species.
• Integrated misting system.
• In contrast to the usual purely
aesthetic green wall.
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3 layers of
façade serving
different
purposes,
the second
layer is curtain
wall while
creepers acts
as breathing
membrane

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• The screen also
takes on an
aesthetic function
of a dynamic
façade.
• Assorted species
organized in a way
to create patterns,
as well as bloom
at various times of
the year.
• Bring attention to
different parts of
the building
façade through the
changing seasons.

12. • The company employs 20
gardeners who tend to the façade
and can access it though a system
of catwalks on all five levels.
• The penetration of the building
visually by two very disparate
groups – both socially and
economically, also softens the social
threshold created by class
differences, which are inevitable in
corporate organizations in India.
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13. 13

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House in a Tea garden
Conoor, Tamilnadu, India (2008)

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• Set in a tea plantation,
designed to minimize its
footprint on the landscape
of tea plantation.
• Was designed to be more
like a guest house for tea
plantation fraternity
members.
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17. A wide entrance lounge,
through which one enters into
a vestibule, which opens onto
a living lounge.
Stone Pavers used for
hardscape.
2
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18. 2
A one level and open layout
floor plan
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19. 2
The linear structure that sits
right at the edge of the
plantation, making the most
of the garden's views.
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The finished concrete of the
main circulation spine that
connects the house's rooms;
several bedrooms, including a
guest suite, lounge, living and
dining areas, as well as
kitchen and service rooms.

21. The three main rooms are
made to look like three
separate cabins underneath
the single roof and were
therefore treated as boxes
within an open plan and built
from wood which contrasts
the concrete and stone slab
and metal canopy of the other
primary components.
2
21

22. 2
A form-finished concrete tube
forms the central circulation
spine for the house, with
interior spaces finished in
richly textured natural wood.
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23. The roof certainly dominates
the final structure. Finished in
stainless steel panels, the roof
also acts as a blurring of
boundaries between inside
and out, bringing glimpses of
the surrounding nature into
the interior through its
reflections.
2
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24. 2
The roof that floats
above the verandah and
reflects the tea garden
below.
Contextually
comfortable, yet
distinctly modern, the
house overlooks the tea
garden remaining in
dialogue with its 24

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Housing for Mahouts and
Their Elephants-HaathiGaon
Amer, Jaipur, India (2010)
3

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Location: Foothills of Amber
Fort Jaipur,
Rajasthan
• A housing project for a 100 elephants and
their Mahouts (caretakers), Hathigaon (or
elephant village)
• This is a very sustainable and low housing
project.
• A great design which is nature, human and
animal sensitive came out of the
intelligence and cleverness of the architect
for utilizing the site
• This project created a healthy relation and
brought them closer to each other.
• The design and planning instead of
segregating the people bring them closer.

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• The design strategy first
involved structuring the
landscape that had been
devastated by its use as
a sand quarry by local
sand suppliers, to create
a series of water bodies
to harvest the rain
runoff, as this is the most
crucial resource in the
desert climate of
Rajasthan.
SITE
UTILISATION

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The water body was a
critical component of
the design, as it also
facilitated the
bonding between
the mahout and
elephant, through the
process of bathing –
an important ritual
both for the health of
the elephant as well
as their bonding with
their keeper.

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• With the water
resources in place, an
extensive tree plantation
program was carried out
together with seeding
the site to propagate
local species - all at an
extremely low cost,
using local labour and
craftspeople – a
sustainable
development.
• Local labor and
craftsperson are
investing in their own
area.
• Helping the elephant
community to grow
sustainably
VEGITATION
PLANTATION

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• The thans (housing unit
s) are organized in
clusters and situated on
portions of the site that
are not used for the
landscape
regeneration.
Courtyards and
pavilions supplement
the otherwise small
area of 40 sqm that
was allocated in the
budget for this
essentially
low-income housing pr
oject.
• The site planning thus
employed a system of
clusters to create
shared community
space at different
hierarchies to build a
sense of community

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• The challenges of
working through the
bureaucracy in a
project sponsored
by the Government
and executed by the
equivalent to the
Public Works
Department were
overcome by
focusing on the
landscape and using
the precious
resource of water as
the central
instrument around
which decisions
were facilitated.
CHALLENGES

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• This was a humbling
experience, as
clearly the lives of
the inhabitants, and
what was crucial for
their needs, were
privileged in the
budgets with the
investment
in architecture being
minimal.
• The intent in the
design was to leave
room for the
inhabitants to
transform their own
homes incrementally
and appropriate
them through visual
and spatial
transformations over
time.
• Play of shadow and light
• Stones are not perfectly cut in a stone therefore a
• Random Rubble Masonry with perfect finish
• it look like a primitive structure, raw and unfinished.
• But there is a beauty in that also.

33. • The elephant’s feed is stored on the thin metal roof, insulating it from the harsh sun
• Raised metal roof allows stack effect which allows hot air to pass out.
• Light, corrugated metal roofing and open MS (mild steel) framing.
• Openings in opposite directions helps in cross ventilation.

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THE DIFFERENCE!
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MARCH 2007
SEPT 2010

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TIP │ Use the built-in color
palette with green and yellow
for callouts and accents
USE of locally available resources

36. “
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—RAHUL MEHROTRA
WE respond to questions of inequity, climate, local
availability of materials and technology…
We are not interested in the acrobatics of architecture or
importing materials.

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