Adaptive Reuse of Rajghat Power Plant by Aarushi Kalra of RMDK Architects

Rajghat Power
Rajghat Power
Image © rmdk architects

Aarushi Kalra of RMDK Architects designed a conceptual adaptive reuse proposal for the soon dysfunctional Rajghat Power Station, New Delhi, India, to be built as a Fashion Hub. Located in the cultural hub of the city, in close proximity with all prominent infrastructure of Delhi, the urban scape is transformed into an icon for fashion and design.

Rajghat Power
Image © rmdk architects

The proposed design is the juxtaposition of fashion’s ability to seduce and manufacture desires with the complex structuring of neutral spaces to allow for a multiplicity of users and events. At the city scale, the luminous and dynamic layers of building skin attracts and lures; as users approach and ultimately enter the building, the imagery is transformed into unique atmospheric experiences.

Rajghat Power
Image © rmdk architects

This project harnesses the glamour of fashion as the medium to ignite the re-imagination of architecture’s value and the interpretation of beauty and style, providing the means for experiences to transcend into a world of spectacle. The built environment provides a footnote to our histories, helping to identify our places as Indian, rather than generically ‘modern’ or ‘contemporary’. Historic buildings give us a glimpse of our past and lend character to our communities.

Rajghat Power
Image © rmdk architects

The Fashion Hub in this context, connects the three main sectors of the field. ‘Learn’ allows exposure to traditional techniques and new technologies. ‘Do’ houses designers and makers. Incubator units and mentoring programs offer support and nurturing for future brands and craftsmen. ‘Sell’ makes it a destination of choice for the world’s buying market.

Rajghat Power
Site Plan

Keeping the important structures of the power plant in place, structural and programmatic changes were introduced to reinvent the complex. Immense importance was paid to the landscape and laying out of smaller functions to add a sense of scale and life to the expansive urbanscape. Inspired from the tying style of the Indian garment-a saree, various explorations were done by pleating fabrics in different ways to form architectural forms.

Rajghat Power
Exploded axonometric

Being a fashion hub, the intention was to draw inspiration for the built form from folds of fabric. Blurring proposes new ways of thinking about architecture, presenting new ideas of what architecture can be. It creates an awareness that architectural design involves more than materials and static forms, it doesn’t necessarily need to have boundaries. The environment has been so designed to implicate what fashion stands for – an ever-changing environment.

Rajghat Power
Concept

As one looks around, platforms at various levels can be seen harbouring a variety of activities. With each new turn, comes a new experience may it be a fashion show against the Chimney, a visit into the studio courtyard to interact with various designers or losing oneself in the sweeping walls of the bazaar. Fashion and architecture were overlaid to treat the Rajghat Power Plant in a design language that does not overpower the existing framework adds stylistic qualities of fashion to an industrial complex in a bold manner. Source and images Courtesy of rmdk architects.

1 Comment

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