Architecture
Tote Restaurant - Kapil Gupta, Serie Architects
Serie Architects bend the rules associated with type and typology at Tote, a series of food and beverage complexes at the racecourse in Mumbai.
When presented with the challenge of designing a combination of banquet hall, bar and fine dining venue within the premises of the Royal Western Indian Turf Club, Kapil Gupta and Chris Lee of Serie Architects began re-examining the fundamentals of this particular type and typology. This has been an almost constant preoccupation on Serie’s projects over the years and the heritage building within which Tote was situated provided the opportunity to take these concerns further.
Kapil Gupta says that urban architecture even within an interior setup must engage with the city. This thought process leads to the questioning of normally accepted type-typology conventions. Type in this case, is used as being projective to the city and thus generative of architecture, as opposed to being relegated to an observing and examining role. Secondly type-generation on the basis of formal or structural organisation makes type go beyond the normal programme or function generated criteria. This kind of lateral thinking that provides pan-project logic leads to typological innovation.
The building in which Tote was to be housed was a heritage Grade II B structure and heritage conservation guidelines called for the preservation of the roof profile for three-quarters of the buildings and a full conservation for the remaining one-quarter. However what caught the designers’ fancy was not the tangible steel frame structure but the more poetic structure of the huge raintrees that literally enveloped the open spaces surrounding the site. Picking up from the raintrees that inscribe an interior space beneath their canopy outdoors, the new structure inside takes a life of its own within the existing building envelope.
In an earlier project at the Blue Frog in Mumbai, the designers had reinterpreted the horseshoe plan form traditionally associated with the Opera type to fit the programmatic requirements of a restaurant and performance space. Gupta emphasises that the cellular organisation which found expression in the seating at Blue Frog was taken forward at Tote but in a totally different context – over a change of function and scale. The raintrees were the basis of the building logic, but different systems were used for different parts of the building, depending on functional needs. Each dining programme (wine bar, restaurant, café and banquet facilities) was defined by a different structural growth of the tree branch system, allowing for various modulations of volume and light penetration. There was an increase in intricacy in the third dimension too as the columns grow into branches and then further bifurcate into formations in the ceiling to support the roof.
The tree structure was designed as a steel truss, constructed of I-sections, vaulted in section. The laser cutting method was used to cut the web accurately as per the design, followed by the welding of the flanges and assembly of the truss. To ensure greater precision during the welding process, fabricators from the boiler industry were preferred, rather than ones from the construction industry. Though all the different spaces use the same basic structural logic, the detailing was to be worked out as per the particular requirement. For example, the pre-function area was an in-between space straddling the raintrees outdoors with the simulated tree branch structure inside. It was therefore designed as a verandah reminiscent of a colonial gymkhana. The bar, on the other hand, was a 9 m high space, perched on the upper floor, was to be fully wood paneled for acoustical purposes. This was achieved by fashioning an intricate arrangement of three dimensional facetted wooden panels, with a pattern that takes off from a series of trees with intersecting branches. The false ceiling is also a complex arrangement of three lighting systems built up in plasterboard and plywood coves, which enables the flexibility to alter the lighting based on event type.
The execution of these seemingly hi-tech details was made possible by innovatively using the local resources available. Such labour intensive methods would be impossible to carry out in Europe, says Gupta, where the costs involved would be simply prohibitive. Another aspect of Serie Architects’ works which is apparent at Tote is that it is a part of an investigative process. The articulation of the vaults in the roof, for instance, is a preoccupation that began while designing a residence in Mumbai (Meswani House), was taken further at Tote and found a further expression in the design for a pavilion for a horticultural exhibition in China, albeit in a radically different manner. The designers fundamentally believe in the potency of typological thought. And at the end of the day, as Gupta says, it might be a cliché but good design does equal good business.
- The building in which Tote was to be housed was a heritage Grade II B structure and heritage conservation guidelines called for the preservation of the roof profile for three-quarters of the buildings and a full conservation for the remaining one-quarter. © Fram Petit
- Picking up from the raintrees that inscribe an interior space beneath their canopy outdoors, the new structure inside takes a life of its own within the existing building envelope. © Fram Petit
- There was an increase in intricacy in the third dimension too as the columns grow into branches and then further bifurcate into formations in the ceiling to support the roof. © Fram Petit
- The tree structure was designed as a steel truss, constructed of I-sections, vaulted in section. The laser cutting method was used to cut the web accurately as per the design, followed by the welding of the flanges and assembly of the truss.
- The bar, was a 9 m high space, perched on the upper floor. © Fram Petit
- An intricate arrangement of three dimensional facetted wooden panels was fashioned, with a pattern that takes off from a series of trees with intersecting branches. © Fram Petit
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