A huge residential development designed by Dutch architect MVRDV has been completed near Pune in Maharashtra State.
The architect describes Future Towers, a complex of 1,068 apartments, as a "true vertical village", with as many as 5,000 residents in a single building.
MVRDV explains its design by pointing out that Indian construction costs are low, and lifts are comparatively expensive. This led it to form the development into nine housing wings with 17 to 30 storeys each, arranged around four circulation cores.
The architect describes the completed building as a "singular mountainous structure with peaks and valleys", where peaks allow for maximum exposure to daylight, and inclines creating exterior terraces.
Large openings known as "scoops" are built into the building’s façade to connect with the central corridor and provide refuge spaces to meet fire code requirements. Each scoop is designed for a different recreational activity, such as yoga or mini golf, or for a different type of resident, such as young adults or children.
Jacob van Rijs, MVRDV co-founder, said: "In Asia cities are growing so fast, and uniform repetitive residential towers are the norm.
"With our design, we are making an effort to offer more variety and bring people from more different backgrounds together. In the original master plan, 16 separate towers were planned, all of which would have more or less the same type of apartments."
Future Towers is located in Amanora Park, a township created in 2007. The completed building is the first part of MVRDV’s Future Towers projects. There will be three phases and around 3,500 dwellings in total. The architect is currently working on the second.
Images courtesy of MVRDV/Ossip
