Architexturez-IN wrote:

It was perhaps the last chance to salvage the only vestige of the city’s textile history. However, on Thursday, as the heritage committee finally  forwards the list of proposed heritage structures to the civic chief, it would not include over 70 mill land structures.

At first glance, the almost 20-year-old set of dilapidated warehouses, with crumbling roofs, walls and floors, may just be one more of those decaying and light-deprived sites that dot our cities. But, for Kalhan and Santha Gaur Mattoo, directors of Planet 3 Studios Architecture, the rundown cotton mill warehouses at Mumbai’s Reay Road offered a chance to showcase their skills in reviving a defunct structure.

The project was to convert the 20,000 sq. ft set of warehouses into a fresh retail space for building materials, without bringing down the original structure. Santha says: “The client (Deepak Shah of Sumer Infrastructure) attached a three-year lifespan to the project. We knew that it has to be built more like a large exhibition hall than a retail space. We also knew that we’d be working with a stringent budget, yet there was something about the project that excited us. The height of the building, the trusses, the sheer volume…we wanted to make something out of this rundown ruin, and revive the architectural magic of a bygone era.”

The result? The Sea Horse Building Product Mall. Everything about the mall is different. The conventional formula in retail space design—where space-treatment takes a back seat and the products do the talking—was given a fresh spin. The architects kept the basic shell, including the walls and ceiling, free of product display. Instead, display panels, pedestals and visual merchandising displays were parked as island units across the space. Task lighting, electrical power and even mechanical ventilation was derived from free-standing steel columns anchored on the floor. This architectural model was also practical: being modular, the client could dismantle everything and shift it to a new location.

Says Kalhan: “Considering our target audience, we presumed that we would be engaging the interest of the people who might be willing to accept something that was a little off the beaten track.”