Architects Namith Varma and Gayathri Shetty have done the district proud with the trends they have set and the awards they have won, writes JAIDEEP SHENOY
PHOTO: R. ESWARRAJ
The creative force Gayathri Shetty and Namith Varma with Vasudevan R. Kadalayil (centre), Chief, GNA PHOTO: R. ESWARRAJ
He is a confirmed bachelor wedded to his profession. She is his best friend’s wife. He likes the East and feels she has too much of the West in her. Yet when these seemingly opposite poles come together, they get along like a house on fire. Namith Varma and Gayathri Shetty and their Bangalore-based firm Gayathri and Namith Architects (GNA) are now familiar names in architecture circles.
Their first tryst with fame came when they designed Samskrutha Patashala at Sringeri for the seer of Sringeri Sharada Peetham. It won the duo the coveted JK Award in 1995. They have not looked back since and with their team of 75 qualified professionals have bagged many more awards. They were in Mangalore recently to share their latest success, which saw GNA win three national awards and four south zone awards in the last quarter. GNA’s office at Cauvery Colony, Koramangala, Bangalore, has won the prestigious IIID-MK 2006 for large corporate office category.
Reflection of lifestyle
Namith is a product of Manipal Institute of Technology and believes architects should come up with reflections of lifestyles, tradition and cultures in their works rather than impose their ideas on clients. He terms the architecture model in the West as “ego-oriented”. He compares himself to a physician who diagnoses the needs of his client as he interacts with them and strives to reflect the lifestyle of the end user through his work.
Gayathri says GNA has various means to understand pulse of the clients – questionnaires, presentations and personal interactions. Both agree clients are in a terrible hurry to see their project come to life and thank technology for vastly reducing turn around time.
The duo say the range of buildings they design are quite wide. Their concepts use more light and are energy saving. Projects in the past have included private residences, industrial projects, corporate offices, apartments, housing, malls, software technology parks, institutional buildings, super-specialty hospitals, resorts and hotels.
A resort project currently underway on the outskirts of Bangalore would give people a real life feel of the blockbuster “Sholay”.
Namith says his team has used the natural landscape of Ramanagaram to conceive and plan a resort, which when completed would give visitors the feel of Ramesh Sippy’s blockbuster complete with waiting dacoits and what not.
Visitors would also be taken to the resort in a cart to relive some memorable scenes from the movie. GNA is presently handling projects such as the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore, proposed stadiums of Karnataka State Cricket Association at Hassan and Shimoga, a proposed special economic zone and the campus of JSS College of Ayurveda at Mysore, a mall in Coimbatore, a luxury apartment project and an international Ayurveda centre at Bangalore.
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