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By creating a visual marker for a township as well as an open space accessible to its residents, Oasis Designs Inc. has redefined the norm for roundabout design at The Crossings Circle.

Oasis Designs Inc. (ODI) designed The Crossings Circle Roundabout as part of the larger landscape Masterplan for the 360-acre Crossings Republik Township project in Ghaziabad, National Capital Region of Delhi. While the aim of the overall landscape design programme was to create green public spaces for the residents within the township, The Crossings Circle was a point of particular interest. It occurs at a junction where four roads meet and therefore the designers chose to optimise on its prominence in the landscape by emphasising its location via several elements.

The design of roundabouts India has more often than not been purely functional; they are positioned at road junctions for the convenient streaming of traffic and if at all ‘greened,’ they remain largely inaccessible to the pedestrian public. The Crossings Circle Roundabout is a welcome departure from this approach, in that it acknowledges the primary need for pedestrian access to these seemingly minuscule green spaces that exist in highly dense urban environments. The danger of having pedestrians dart across the road for entry to the Roundabout and the avoidable situation of them having to breathe noxious fumes once inside, have been circumvented by the creation of levels. ODI created access to the Roundabout through subways that connect the central area to the quadrants. These in turn are connected to the upper level with the help of steps and ramps. Subways further connect the adjoining shopping areas. What is achieved is that the Roundabout becomes a visual marker at the upper level, while remaining a user-friendly open space at the lower level.

The attempt has been to design the Roundabout in a manner that physically and visually connected the various parts of site. It is possible to view it from a distance due to the vertical components. These are expressed by tall palm trees in the soft landscape and in the form of the eight inverted tensile membranes and eight sloping columns in the hard. In turn, these conceal waterspouts and lighting, both of which emerge as significant facets of the resolved design. At lower level, a large central fountain is surrounded by small LED lit geyser jets. The lighting is almost all indirect in nature, wherein light that bounces off the tensile structures and the columns succeeds in enlivening the space, especially after dark.

The roads that meet at the Crossing are bounded by strips of green and also have a similar strip running though the middle. These culminate physically and visually into the expanse of the Roundabout. Having said that, this particular project exhibits a skew towards hard landscaping, with water being a strong feature throughout, and only few soft landscape elements being placed where necessary. While one wishes that there could have been a better balance between these two aspects, one suspects that the upkeep and possible vandalism of the foliage would have been an issue under consideration.

One also worries about the general maintenance of the Roundabout but thankfully, it exists within a township. This implies that there will not be as much user traffic as a truly ‘public’ garden and also lesser volumes of traffic passing by. This minimises the chances of the Roundabout from becoming rundown and worse for wear with the passage of time and hopefully this foretells a long and healthy future for this particular outdoor scheme. The design as it stands creates an overall impact of calmness and coolness shielding the occupants of the open space from the humdrum of life above.

Text Compilation: Amrita Ravimohan
Drawings & Photographs: courtesy the architects

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