The lowdown on high rise

  “I am thoroughly inspired by people who thought differently. Steve Jobs at Apple taught me how innovation can be beautiful,Bill Gates showed how dreams can turn into success stories and even Howard Roark the fictional architect from Ayn Rand’s novel-The Fountainhead showed me how thinking out of the box can benefit everyone,” says Law with an almost childlike enthusiasm as he speaks about his love for combining architecture and technology.

Law,who was in the city to deliver a lecture at the Dr Bhanuben Nanavati College of Architecture for Women on the topic of ‘Architecture through Inventionism- Cybertecture’,was at his candid best as he spoke of his passion to merge robotics with steel,concrete and glass to create new designs. “The basic idea behind designing buildings like these is to ensure that they become intelligent homes where people can actually enjoy the experience of living. In fact at The Pad in Dubai residents of the apartments can actually choose from over 150 destinations across the globe as their view when they open their curtains. So theoretically a person in Dubai can set a Chinese marketplace as the view,as seen from his balcony,” he says.  

Law feels that this kind of development and planning is a result of the converging nature of products the world over. “For instance the mobile has a long way from being a communicating device to becoming a camera a music player and so on. On similar lines architecture too is converging,” he says. A definite example of the same are the designs for the Technosphere which is a sphere shaped building inspired by the earth,or the Hindra Tower that is coming up in Mumbai that resembles a giant raindrop just before it would hit the ground.

“I have a strange fascination with spherical,and elongated geoid shapes as they not only enable us to encapsulate a larger volume inside the space,but also require less cladding on the exterior thereby saving resources,” he says.

Law does feel however that the world is growing at too fast a pace and that if adequate steps are not taken now,it would be difficult to contain the environmental changes. He says,“By 2050 the world’s population will increase by 50 per cent of what it is now,and 50 per cent of that population will live in cities,so we need to ensure that our future development is not just limited to building bigger cities but developing areas outside the cities so that the expansion can be qualitative.”

India,Law feels is the next big thing as far as development in the real estate sector is concerned because the scope for development here is huge. “Cybertecture means living the future in the present,and one of the few places that will be witnessing this change is India because of the self absorbing nature of the country and the fact that development of this kind will benefit everyone,right from the elite classes to the simple common man,” he says.

Buildings by Law

The Technosphere in Dubai

The TRX Tower in Juhu

Hindra Tower in Dadar

Horizon Tower Worli Sea Front

Perinee Tower in Juhu

The Pad in Dubai