Vivanta is located at the entrance of the International Tech Park at Whitefield, Bangalore (ITPB), India, the hotel is a gateway statement between the IT Park and the developing city around it.
The brief inspired the team to question and push the boundaries of hotel design, not just to address the needs of the discerning business traveller coming to Whitefield, but also to redefine and intensify the hotel as a contemporary socio-cultural hub for both the IT Park and IT-based population in Whitefield. The building embraces Bangalore’s culture and climate, adopting a site-specific landscape strategy that plays on relationships between interior and exterior spaces. Public and private spaces interweave in an endless promenade of spatial experiences with culturally distinctive cinematic qualities that allude to the circling and twisting of traditional Indian dance forms. The resulting seamless experience dissolves not only the boundaries between the inside and outside of the hotel but also the stigma of a five-star hotel’s inherent social and cultural status, encouraging casual interactions and exchanges between hotel guests and locals within its public promenade. Constraints prescribed by the low height restrictions and the high site coverage in the urban design guidelines were resolved through a ‘landscraper’ (as opposed to ‘skyscraper’) concept.
To maximise the high site coverage, the ground plane of the site was conceptually manipulated into a mobius strip that would constitute the podium of the hotel. The twists and folds of the strip extend the perception of space. As the landscape is introduced back to the folded ground plane, the podium seemingly dematerialises, blurring the distinction between architecture, interior and landscape. The three-storey room block then extrudes from the ground plane, hovers above and flexes its way around the site, lifting its way mid-air to enclose 200 rooms within its form.
Quick Facts:
- Project: Vivanta by Taj, Bangalore
- Architect: WOW Architects, Singapore; DPA
- Area: 19,638 Sq m or 2,11,381 Sq ft (212 Keys)
- Photographs: Aaron Pocock
