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| Edited By: Pooja Sarkar |Source: |Updated: Sep 15, 2017, 02:08 AM IST
Better expertise, technical knowhow give them the edge over local players
MUMBAI: If you believe there’s a foreign hand behind India’s real-estate boom, you’re not far off the mark.
From your neighbourhood mall to the Rain Forest Resort in Bangalore to the infrastructure for the upcoming Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, the country’s construction sector owes a bit of its success to a clutch of foreign architects.
Ask Andrew Scott from Bailman’s East, Australia. In November 2007, when Scott was discussing projects with his friends, someone suggested that he head for India.
It completely surprised him then. But today, Scott’s cost-effective homes dot the landscapes in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Orissa.
And he’s not alone.
The Rain Forest Resort in Bangalore is being built by Jimmy Lim from Malaysia, Forreck architects from Canada is constructing the Magnet Mega Mall at Bhandup, Singapore-based Bentel Associates International (BAI) designed the Inorbit mall at Mumbai, and Omiros One International, Australia, is designing Omaxe group’s headquarters and residential towers and Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe from Germany is pitching for the Common Wealth games infrastructure.
It’s their expertise and technical know-how that go in favour of the foreign architects.
Typically, foreign architects design the main project after the soil testing, land feasibility and other tests and then local architects supervise the projects.
The BAI-designed South City Mall Project, in Kolkata, for example, was supervised by Prabir Mitra and associates from the same city.
Says Omiros Emmanoulidies, director, Omiros One International, Australia, “In India, Indian architects do not have the right to say anything. There are very few architects who have the capacity to say, ‘No, I want my project’. They deliver what their clients specify, but in our case, we come and tell the clients what is the design, how it is going to be constructed, and here the ball is in our court.”
But there are people like Prakash Deshmukh director, Associated Space Designers Pvt Ltd, which designed India’s first eco-friendly township project at Magarpatta, Pune, who question the wisdom behind bringing in foreign architects.
“A majority of architects working in foreign architectural firms are Indians,” he says.
“The present trend of appointing foreign architects is driven by the typical Indian mentality that ‘everything foreign is good’. It’s just a marketing gimmick,” he says.
Deshmukh has a point.
For every foreign architect, like the Hong Kong-based Terry Farell, which is renovating the Old Delhi railway station, there’s a P K Das overseeing the Lokmanya Tilak Terminus railway station redevelopment work, in Mumbai.
Deshmukh himself has undertaken some real-estate projects in Singapore.
Hafeez Contractor, the man who redefined Mumbai’s skyline, has also designed the tallest tower in Dubai called Al Marina. He is also doing a project in China.
Mumbai-based Bobby Mukherjee, who started his Dubai operations years ago, and Sannon and Sen architects from Kolkata, which is doing some hospitality projects in Fiji, are two other examples.
So, what then is the idea behind this “foreign hand”?
Harsh Sannon , principal architect, Sannon and Sen Associates, Kolkata says, “There are fields like bio-technology parks, airports, and hotel projects which require higher technical understanding and analysis, where they have more exposure.”
These foreign players have grabbed commercial, residential, hospitality, SEZs to government contracts also.
Foreign firms say there are aesthetic and cultural differences during the implementation stage.
Says Omiros, “In India, architecture is at a very basic stage. It is a more price-driven market and regulations don’t comply with international standards.”
But Harsh Sanon has a different tale to tell. “Rules and regulations here are stringent, but most projects are flashy and do not take into consideration earth-quake resistance and other norms which are important to avoid any calamities affecting the building.”
Indian architects do agree that their foreign counterparts have better expertise in certain areas.
But so long as foreign architects are increasing the competency level, and Indian architects gear up for tougher competition, no one will be complaining.
