REVIEW | PRESTIGE SHANTINIKETAN, BANGALORE

An aerial view of  Prestige Shantiniketan.

PRESTIGE SHANTINIKETAN:

Prestige Shantiniketan is an under-construction self-contained township in Whitefield, Bangalore, spread over 105 acres having a  residential section with around 3000 apartments, a Radisson Hotel, a Business Center with 3.5 million sft office area, a Forum Mall, a convention center and a five-screen multiplex.

PROMOTER:
Prestige Shantiniketan is developed by the Prestige Group, one of the biggest builders of Bangalore, with around 185 completed projects to their credit.

ARCHITECT:
Prestige Shantiniketan is designed by M/s RSP Group, a multinational  architectural firm with an office in Bangalore.

ABOUT PRESTIGE SHANTINIKETAN:
Shantiniketan has been designed with two distinct areas – the residential precinct, called Soul Space placed away from the business precinct called the Commercial Crescent so as to ensure privacy for the residents because the commercial area is used by non-residents as well.

SOUL SPACE:
Soul Space, the residential precinct has 2839 apartments spread out in towers with 12 – 18 floors.  These towers  are supposed to have been designed to create the New York Skyline.The residential area has over 75% of open-to-sky green spaces that are traffic-free and have amenities like playgrounds, water bodies, lawns, leisure spaces and a large 10 acre central park.

COMMERCIAL CRESCENT :
The Business Section which is located away from the residential area, (in order to maintain privacy for the residents) houses a business development centre that comprises a stand alone 17-level signature tower, a 12-level crescent shaped block anchored at both ends by two 16-level towers. In addition, there is a Raddisson hotel and a convention centre and a large reflective pool.

Perspective of the Commercial Crescent

GLOBAL LOUNGE:
The business precint is adjacent to the Global Lounge which has facilities like a food court, health court, fine dining restaurant, bank, ATMs, coffee shop, a five-screen multiplex and the Forum Mall.

Perspective of the proposed Forum Mall

FEATURES:
Prestige Shantiniketan has all the features you can expect nowadays like a clubhouse with indoor badminton courts, tennis courts, squash courts, party area, pool table, table tennis, coffee shop, jogging track, a children’s play area and separate health clubs for men and women. Party halls, recreational rooms like the card/chess/carrom room, a lounge library, a restaurant, a large swimming pool and jogging tracks.

MY REVIEW:

Positives:

• I like the idea of mixed land-use of this huge 105 acre property, that is, having a business centre, entertainement  complex and residential towers in the same complex, but yet quite seggregated. This way the promoter is hugely benefited  by letting out the office spaces and the entertainement areas to the general public.
• I like the fact that the residential towers are quite tall, which allows for 75% of open, green space. And if, as the promoter claims, “the 10 acre central park is designed with rolling green lawns and shady trees, where like-minded people can meet up for a stroll around the park, to read a book under a tree or may be spend a lazy afternoon picnicking with the kids,” then it would be a wonderful place to spend a lazy Sunday.
• The curved glass, business tower at the edge of a large, reflective pool looks good in the Site plan, but whether in reality the size of the pool is big enough to create the visual reflection and imagery that I imagine, is to be seen.

The structural glazing being erected on the commercial crescent

Negatives:

• The recent photos of the structural galzing on the commercial crescent building do not look impressive.
• The planning and the circulation in the units has not been given much thought – the living/dining space is very small in most units, the doors of the bedrooms open into the dining area, leaving very less space for a dining table and thoroughfare movement.
• Though the promoter claims that the ‘Soulspace’ – residential towers will recreate the New York skyline, when I look at the recent photos of the project, I see nothing of New York in them. I can only see very ordinary, regular, crowded, high-rise buildings, that remind me of some old parts of Mumbai.
• On the whole I feel, there is not much of ‘Soul’ in this space.

The residential towers in Soulspace

COLLAPSE:
23rd October 2008: Four persons were injured and another 100 construction workers had a providential escape when a part of a 15-storeyed concrete structure under construction in Prestige Shantiniketan crashed at Whitefield here on Thursday. Around 4.20 pm, while removing the centring material, one corner of the roof of tower C started to give in. Six floors of the block crashed subsequently and the entire portion collapsed within the next half hour. About 60 workers who were working on the rooftop, removing the centring structure, ran to safety when the crash occurred. It was reported that one worker was missing and 4 workers who were at the bottom were injured.

The fire force could not launch a full-fledged rescue operation for two and a half hours because of the gradual collapse. Even after all the 14 floors had crashed, raising a cloud of cement, rescue could not begin because of reduced visibility. Light evening showers further delayed the process. Later, the fire force abandoned the operation following assurances from the promoters that there were no workers in the building at the time of the crash.

Prestige Group chairman Irfan Razack said there were no casualties nor was any worker injured. IJM, a Malaysian infrastructure company are the contractors for the project. Asked about the cause of the crash, he said: “We believe a concrete slab that was being laid fell, and that then had a cascading effect. While I don’t think there’s any structural problem, we will evaluate all possibilities that could have led to this.”

According to an eyewitness,“Immediately after the incident, the workers at the construction site had left. Very soon they were sent to isolated places in a few trucks. A Few officers, perhaps from the contractors side, had shifted all the workers to some other location immediately. They instructed the security guard and other workers at the construction site not to answer the media or the police,” he said.

A photo of the collapsed portion of the Shantiniketan building.

ARCHITECT’S REVIEW OF THE COLLAPSE:

To me, it looks like the construction was going at break-neck speed since there might have been deadlines to be met. Normally after an RCC slab has been laid, it is important that it be given enough time to set and get tied to the underlying concrete structure. However in a hurry to speed up things, especially in multi-storey structures, the setting time is considerably shortened because not much work can be done while waiting for it to set.  That must be why when the centring sheets were being removed, the slab crashed.

Let’s hope that, as reported in the media, there were no casualities. But I personally feel there might have been a number of  deaths or injuries because there is not much time to react in such situations. The whole matter must have been hushed up as is evident by the way the workers  disappeared and no actual eyewitnesses were available for comment. In such things, the reaction was instantaneous.

But in saying this, I have to add that I have a good opinion of Prestige Group and their buildings. I live in Bangalore; as an Architect I worked for a well known architectural firm that has designed many Prestige projects; and my parents live in a Prestige apartment.  Prestige Group has consistently kept up a good standard in all their projects. But in the race aginst time, even the best tend to forget the big picture and worry only about deadlines or money.