India Habitat Centre 6.18

The India Habitat Centre is a multipurpose building in New Delhi, India. Mixing work, commercial and social spaces, the Indian Habitat Centre is India’s most comprehensive convention centre.HistoryThe India Habitat Centre was started in 1993. The public agency for Housing and Urban Development Corporation Ltd (HUDCO) wanted an office building for its workers and made the unprecedented decision to invite chosen non-profit organisations that shared their concern with habitat to share that work space.In 2009, the India Habitat Centre co-hosted the first Habitat Summit (http://www.habitatsummit.org) with Mirabilis Advisory and Urban Habitats Forum, a professional civil society initiative whose primary purpose is to serve as a multi-disciplinary public awareness and educational platform, and to facilitate positive change in India’s cities by engaging all stakeholders of society in shaping India’s built environment. Held in September, the Summit served as a communication vehicle to position key policy issues and to highlight opportunities for positive change by showcasing community-oriented urban renewal projects.IHC started organising and hosting the Delhi Photo Festival held every two years since 2011. The partnership between India Habitat Centre (IHC) and Nazar Foundation (parent body of Delhi Photo Festival) was dissolved in early 2015 and Delhi Photo Festival 2015 was held at Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA).DesignThe chairman of HUDCO and the architect Joseph Allen Stein decided to radically change the traditional image of an office building as an architectural project and transformed it into an urban design project. The space was designed to permit the members of the Centre to share services both inside and outside the building with multiple courtyards, common meeting rooms, shared parking area, library, restaurants, museum, and hotels, some of which are open to the general public. Constructed on nine acres in an urban area, the building eschewed traditional building materials and techniques.