EXPERIMENTAL LANDSCAPE
Hybrid Landscapes - Communicators Between the Worlds
Program: Commercial
Area: 10 Acres
Client: TSIIC
Status: Tender
Location: Hyderabad, South India
The Government of Telangana seeks to develop a state-of-the-arts Information Technology Campus of National and International importance.
Our landscape design resonates this through the integration of digital and traditional analogue design elements. Initially, this happens through traditional methods of visual representation such as hand sketches and various graphic forms as part of the research, design and presentation process and then progresses to the use of digital methods of virtual reality walk- and fly-throughs. Finally, the physical landscape is transformed into an interactive immersive environment of a holistic experience of the nature existent beyond the site boundaries. This way the emerging landscape reconnects with its pre-existing natural and social context and anchors people in the it.
At Image Tower we explore how the transformative forces of digital technology can be used in addition to the analogue materials and tools of landscape architecture to convey the story of a new landscape. This makes landscapes important communicators in a fast-changing world.
The site has a unique landscape topography and typology with mounds of very large boulders up to several meters in diameter that are a part of the larger hilly landscape. The Musi river flows nearby. The building can be interpreted as a cluster of 9 large cubes. These important features give birth to the ‘Blue Ribbon’ as well as the ‘Green Ribbon’ that find their way through a recreated seemingly natural landscape of boulder mounds and woodlands. They are animated through light and water creating ever-changing effects and emotions on their canvases of steel, stone, wood and tensile reacting to changes in the atmosphere and their immediate human influences.
THE GREEN RIBBON
A green ribbon winds its way through the 3-dimensional space of the exterior as a sequence of pergolas, planters, vertical green and interactive vertical elements. They reflect the surrounding natural landscape of the hills nearby.
THE BLUE RIBBON
A blue ribbon finds its way as a sequence of pools of shallow water, interactive water- reactive concrete, vertical water features and a long animated water feature with bubblers and jets as well as calm water. Light projections create an enlarged animated water play area at night. It reflects the many water streams and the Musi river of Hyderabad.
