Vastu
PROJECT
DETAILS
Vastu
Location,
Worli
Client,
Vastu Builders
Completed
1988
Vastu, one of Hafeez
Contractors first and most innovative designs in the field of high-rise
luxury apartments looms splendidly over the Worli Seaface. This building
,unusual in appearance is no less unusual in interior planning. A triplex
apartment crowns the building, below which are five duplex apartments.
Each apartment is centrally air-conditioned and consists of three bedrooms,
a double-height living room, dining area, kitchen, a semi-circular deck,
store and servants room.
The superstructure comprises
the central staircase and lift core, and two shear walls which go up in
the same axis plane upto the tenth floor level. altogether, 19 slabs are
suspended from the core and shear walls including a stilt slab, ten slabs
for the duplex’s, three slabs for the triplex and the shell dome of the
roof.
The shell-dome is not
a complete dome in its true sense, as it is cut into half and perforated
with open-to-sky slits. It springs from the terrace level, supported on
the end shear walls and composite structural columns; which have been tied
at this terrace level so that they can act together transmitting the delta
deflections in a global space frame.
The interiors of the
apartments have been designed with great care. Marble replaces the usual
cement tile flooring, a free-standing, prefabricated steel staircase clad
in marble connects the two floors of each duplex apartment, the kitchen
platforms are finished in granite and an exquisite plaster of Paris false
ceiling on aluminum frames is fitted over the living and dining areas.
Each of the semi-circular cantilevered balconies has a curved pipe railing
embedded into the main column of the structure and a flower bed surrounding
it. Popularly known as the capsule because of its sleek, cylindrical appearance
Vastu was conceived as a landmark and that is exactly what it has become.
The tonal grading of blue color on its rear facade echoes the receding
blues of the Arabian sea.
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