With the rapid infrastructural development in various developed and developing economies across the globe, there is continuous upgrade and refurbishment in building design and architectural services across numerous typologies such as public, residential, and commercial. According to a recent report by Grand View Research, Inc., the global architectural services market is anticipated to reach USD 391.7 billion by 2025. Increasing investments in the construction sector and the major technological innovations in the Architecture and urban designing landscape such as the use of advanced designing and planning software are the factors fueling the growth of this segment.
Today, advancement in technology is not only revamping urbanism but also enabling individuals, businesses, and governments to have access to a wide range of services and tools. With the most vital components such as shared virtual workspaces between different remote offices, outsourcing of engineering services including the CAD drawing, architecture description languages and project designs,the demand for technology’s role in architecture is increasing rapidly. Furthermore, the advent of new technologies such as Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality is playing a remarkable role in building design as VR is helping architecture firms in communicating the ideas and concepts to clients.
Urban design - the art of creating and shaping cities and towns, involves the process of the arrangement and design of buildings, public spaces, transport systems, etc., to provide a new form and definition to cities. The urban areas are made more functional and attractive, by blending the architecture, landscape architecture, and city planning, through the art of urban design.
The past decade has not only seen a development in the use of design but also design philosophy and design research. The design has evolved into a much more important component, more than shaping and aesthetics; it has increasingly become a strategic element in business innovation processes as well as in several societal developmental processes. However, any project is considered to be economically viable only if the economic benefits of the project exceed the economic costs when analyzed for society as a whole. Moreover, a designer’s ability to combine, for instance, designing with user understanding and overall solutions is increasingly becoming a competitive parameter when companies develop new products and services. Therefore, clients today in the Urban design landscape firstly look for an aesthetically and financially viable project, and secondly, they are willing to work with a team that understands the clients’ vision and expands on it.
This is where Pune based Ground 11 Architects comes into the picture. Ground 11 offers innovative and highly creative architecture and urban design solutions to clients across the globe. Most architectural and Urban design firms do both urban design and individual projects as well but what differentiates Ground 11 from the other players offering similar services in this landscape is the firm’s willingness to delve into complex projects and the capability to completely understand the client requirements and offer solutions that leverage their global design experience with a high degree of granularity in understanding the tangible and intabgible components of a design programme, thereby customising the very process of design for each project eco-system.
Ground 11 differentiates itself through its bouquet of consultancy services that include not only design, but also feasibility, product mix and demand analysis, joint-venture agreement structuring, funding and monetisation models
through phasing and delivery strategies that are in sync with the design intent and project vision. This increases efficiencies while allowing the Ground 11 teams to deliver much higher value.
This has been extremely beneficial while proposing large urban project proposals where interfacing at policy level is essential, well before design.
Building Vital And Exciting Destinations As Per Clients’ Requirements
The unique solutions provided by the company help in addressing the challenges faced in the projects. As a full-service architecture and urban design resource, Ground 11 concentrates on the built narrative – architecture, urban design, and landscape intending to build vital and exciting destinations reflecting the aspirations and needs of each individual site and client.
Placemaking Specialty Design
In terms of urban design, Ground 11 Architect is more of a placemaking specialty design firm that has found a niche in mix-use development, master planning, and usually with the projects which have complicated design programs including several projects that aim at rejuvenation of city centers.
Ground 11 Architects has clients and projects around the world, with work within the contexts of many cultures and landscapes, always developing new ways to express what makes each culture unique, as well as bringing to each project the exciting international components most complimentary to the audience, wherever and whoever it may be. This international approach means the team travels to every part of the world, collecting information and impressions that help in making the design process innovative.
Ground 11 prides itself on learning from each culture it interacts with and uses the experience to try and enrich it in whatever way they can while celebrating and reveling in the freshness of each experience.
As a full-service architecture and urban design resource, ground 11 concentrates on the built narrative - architecture, urban design, and landscape intending to build vital and exciting destinations reflecting the aspirations and needs of each individual site and client
Highly Talented & Experienced Professionals
Spearheaded by Pranav Iyer, Design Principal and Founder of Ground 11 Architects, the Ground 11 team comprises a highly talented and experienced network of consulting architects, designers, engineers, whoseskills lie in effective conceptualization, design, and delivery of signature projects in several different countries and cultures, providing global design solutions in keeping with local technology and processes.
As a scalable and modular organization, a large amount of work done by Ground 11 is research driven. Every design grows around an idea or is a stream of thought which allows reinterpretation and re-evaluation of commonly assumed paradoxes. Ground 11 ensures that every project done by them holds the essence of the design through development.
Seamless Transition
Ground 11 ensures that clients are also a part of the design process. Therefore, the Ground 11 team shares all sketches and process diagrams with the clients throughout the project. “The project design is a seamless transition through research, concept, and design, often requiring an education in the local culture, technologies, and methodologies,” says Pranav Iyer, talking about the design process followed by Ground 11. “The design process and its narration are equally important to us as would want to ensure ‘the why is as important as the what’, through all the stages of design,” he adds. ‘The client is an important part of our design team.”
All projects at Ground 11 are divided based on various criteria such as time frame, research required, resources available, and mandatory inclusion of a team member who has no experience with that particular typology, to provide an unbiased design perspective during the process. Also, the company ensures that each project team is headed by one of the seniors, who also act as a mentor for the team. Since the team defines the direction and the narrative of the project, all members are encouraged to interact with clients to understand the project and the client better.
The Journey Ahead
Having carved a niche for itself in this ubercompetitive design landscape, Ground 11 has worked and continues to work in over 15 countries across the globe. Currently, the firm is working on several projects including a 200 acre mixed use development in Lagos, a university, a mall and housing in Ghana, Residential projects in the US, the Middle East and India, and retail interiors in Australia.
Mobile App Ensuring Travel Safety
Ground 11 architects with drone Iyangar and Prashant Lamba, has developed a mobile app called safecab to empower women traveling alone in unfamiliar places. Safecab helps users to share location updates through SMS throughout their journey only to the people they choose to share the information with.
Designed and developed by Pranav Iyer and his friends, safecab is not affiliated with any cab or transport company. Moreover, this app is completely free to use by millions of women in colleges and universities, in the workforce, who fear for their safety as they venture out of their homes or offices.
