GREEN IN THE GRID by Swathi Vandkar
This project explores the transformation of a large, abandoned industrial land parcel located in the heart of a dense metropolitan city. Once an active textile mill, the site had been left vacant for years, creating a physical and social void within an otherwise vibrant urban core.
​
Rather than treating the site as an isolated redevelopment opportunity, the proposal positions it as a city-making intervention, one that reconnects fragmented urban fabric, relieves surrounding pressure points, and introduces new public life into the city center.​
ECOPOLIS: Intervention for an Abandoned Mill Land
Project Type
Urban mixed-use development | City- center regeneration
Date
August 2020
Location
Bangalore, India
Let me tell you where this place comes from before I tell you what I did to it.
Setup of hydroelectric power station in 1902
Establishment of Cantonment
Establishment of Indian Woolen, Cotton and Silk Mills
City Expansion and Development
Downfall of Mills due to Plague
Mill Abandoned for more than a decade
Defunct Land
The dilapidated Mill buildings were completely demolished in the year 2025
1897
1995
1935
2005
Before it was a project, this was a pause in the city.
The site is a large abandoned industrial land parcel located in the prime city center, once active, productive, and deeply tied to the city’s economic life. After industrial activity shut down, the structures were dismantled and the land was left vacant, creating a rare void within an otherwise dense and constantly moving urban fabric.
​
Over time, this emptiness began to shape its surroundings. Roads around the site absorbed increasing traffic pressure, informal activities spilled into the streets, and the absence of public space intensified congestion rather than relieving it. What remained was not just unused land, but an opportunity, one that demanded careful reintegration rather than isolated redevelopment.
​
This project begins by asking how such dormant urban land can return to the city, not as a closed complex, but as an active, breathable part of everyday life.
THE URBAN PRESSURES & CHALLENGES
The city didn’t wait for the site to catch up.
While the land remained dormant, the city around it accelerated.
Located along a narrow but critical city artery connecting major transit hubs, the site became part of a growing bottleneck. Traffic congestion intensified, pedestrian movement fragmented, and everyday urban activities began competing for the same limited street space. The challenge was not isolation, but overload.
ENVIRONMENTAL GAPS - Where the city forgot to breathe.
​
Years of neglect transformed the site’s edges into hard, inhospitable zones.
Vegetation was minimal, streets lacked shade, and informal waste dumping replaced ecological systems. What should have functioned as a buffer between movement and habitat became a stripped-down corridor, offering neither environmental relief nor pedestrian comfort.
SOCIAL FRICTION - Public life existed, just without a place to land.
​
The area remained socially active, but spatially unresolved.
Without designated public spaces, everyday city life spilled onto the streets, vendors setting up informally, gatherings occupying carriageways, and movement slowing into chaos. The absence of structure didn’t reduce activity; it intensified conflict between people, vehicles, and space.
DESIGN INFERENCES AND PROGRAMME
Design didn’t begin with form. It began with pressure.
.webp)
Not a guess. A response.
​
The design program emerged directly from the site’s pressures like traffic, informal activity, and the absence of public space. Rather than imposing a new object, the project responds by absorbing, organizing, and redistributing these forces into a coherent urban system.
Making space for movement
​
Severe congestion along the site edge revealed the need to expand the public realm. By breaking the old compound wall, the design widens the street edge, relieves bottlenecks, and allows the site to participate in easing city movement rather than adding to it.
Formalizing what already exists
​
Street vendors and informal markets were not treated as problems to remove, but as systems to support. A dedicated vendor zone within the site brings these activities off the road by reducing congestion, improving hygiene, and preserving livelihoods.
Giving public life a place
​
Religious gatherings, processions, and everyday social activity lacked a safe, defined space. The program introduces a cultural plaza and flexible public zones, allowing these events to unfold within the site instead of spilling into traffic corridors.
A program that belongs here
​
Surrounded by housing but located near major transit hubs, the site called for a different urban role. Hospitality, offices, retail, and culture come together as a mixed-use center- active through the day, responsive to the city’s transient and local populations alike.
SHAPING THE FORM
Designed to let air move, light filter, and the city cool itself.
.webp)
SPLIT
The form was never meant to feel like a single, solid object dropped into the city. In a dense, fast-moving urban core, the challenge was to accommodate a high-intensity mixed-use program while still allowing the site to breathe.
The initial idea was drawn from an organic reference, three spreading leaves - chosen not for symbolism alone, but for what they represent: openness, overlap, and growth. This geometry was then abstracted and rationalized into three distinct building masses, capable of holding varied programs without becoming monolithic.
The defining move was the split. By deliberately breaking and shifting the massing, the design creates voids that function as breathable spaces, allowing light, air, and movement to pass through the site. These gaps respond directly to the local climate, encouraging cross-ventilation, capturing prevailing winds, and reducing heat build-up typical of high-density developments in warm conditions.
​
Rather than resisting the city’s intensity, the form negotiates with it, breaking down scale, softening edges, and transforming density into a porous, climate-responsive urban structure.
PLANNING THE EXPERIENCE
From city-scale logic to human-scale movement.
The Master Plan: Weaving the City Back Together
​
The Master Plan is designed not as a gated island, but as a porous extension of the city. The boundary walls are dissolved to widen the adjacent narrow roads, creating a relief valve for traffic. The site organization prioritizes pedestrian flow, drawing people from the busy main road into the central Cultural Plaza.
​
Key Feature: The "Vendor Relocation Zone" lines the edge of the site, creating a formal marketplace that clears the streets while preserving local livelihoods.
​
Green Strategy: 45% of the ground plane is dedicated to open landscape and circulation, reducing the urban heat island effect.
Floor Plans: Zoning & Flow
The Podium Levels (Retail & Public) The lower levels function as the high-energy "Urban Living Room." The plan is organized around a central atrium that acts as a navigation anchor. Large spans accommodate the Shopping Mall and Food Court, ensuring column-free spaces for flexibility.
​
Design Note: Notice the multiple entry points that allow different user groups (shoppers vs. residents) to enter without conflict.
The Tower Levels (Offices & Stay) As the building rises, the floor plates fragment into three distinct blocks (The "Split"). This separation ensures privacy for the Service Apartments and Offices.
The Voids: The plans reveal the "breathable voids" between blocks. These are not just empty spaces; they are wind corridors oriented to channel North winds into the core of the building.
A Machine for Ventilation
The section reveals the project’s core sustainable strategy. The "Split Level" manipulation is visible here - floor plates are staggered to allow visual connectivity across levels while strictly segregating functions.
​
Ventilation Strategy: The central void acts as a chimney, drawing hot air up and out while pulling cool air from the shaded green pockets at the podium level.
​​
The Green Spine: Terraces and overhangs are integrated at every third level, bringing the landscape up from the ground to the sky.
DETAILING THE ARCHITECTURE
Performance without shouting
The detailing of the project focuses on making the building work with the climate rather than against it. A porous podium section is designed to lift the mass slightly off the ground, allowing air to move freely through the lower levels and draw cooler breezes into the heart of the complex—improving comfort in a dense, warm urban environment.
Vertical gardens are integrated along podium edges and upper levels to soften the built form, reduce heat gain, and introduce micro-climates within the architecture. These planted layers are not ornamental additions, but functional elements that shade circulation spaces and improve thermal performance. Gardens are also woven into the building itself, creating shaded courtyards and internal pockets of green that offer visual relief, improve airflow, and support everyday interaction with nature.
On the south-west façade—most exposed to harsh afternoon sun—solar panels are strategically placed to act as both energy generators and shading devices. This dual role reduces solar heat gain while contributing to the building’s energy needs, reinforcing the idea that sustainable detailing can be quiet, integrated, and purposeful rather than performative.
