New Delhi, Morphogenesis has won the 2009 Green GOOD DESIGN™ Award hosted by The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design for the following projects:

 The Apollo Tyres Corporate Office, Gurgaon, Haryana, India
 Ernst and Young Corporate Office, Gurgaon, Haryana, India

The projects were selected out of entries from over 40 nations. The GOOD DESIGN program remains the oldest Awards Program worldwide. The idea is to emphasize the importance of sustainable design and to develop a public awareness program to the international general public about which companies are doing the best job in sustainable design for our world environment.

The Apollo Tyres Corporate Office

The corporate headquarters of the Apollo Tyres Group is an instrument to address issues that are central to the rapidly evolving Indian workplace. The site of the office is flat and lacks topographical character which helped to generate a morphology that goes against the typical corporate office as a building type in India. The building is designed in a way that helps to articulate the Thermal Banking and Day Lighting Strategy which provide to bring in maximum daylight and thermal insulation. An integrated building management system is employed to link all services to human occupancy in order to sense where each occupant is in the building and thereby, activating all services such as Air Conditioning, Electrical systems and Lighting based on occupancy. The architecture is a consequence of an arts and crafts approach and the design of the Apollo Tyres Corporate Office takes into consideration the importance and relevance of being energy conscious within the modern work culture.

Ernst and Young Corporate Office

The Corporate Office of Ernst and Young has been designed on a software routine that generates a self-shading system for selected hours in a day for a specific latitude and longitude. The building is composed of two major components; the building itself and the atrium which adjacent to it. The landscape around the building flows into the atrium to moderate the environment within. The impact of the technology has not only led to the subsequent cutting down of the heat factor, but the indirect sun creates ideal reflected lighting conditions throughout the working hours of the day to completely eliminate the need for artificial lighting which cuts down energy consumption tremendously. The resultant form of the building helps to generate an iconic image and identity and helps define a new approach to corporate office design.

Notes to Editor

Morphogenesis is a design practice engaging in a critical dialogue towards bridging the boundaries of art, architecture, urbanism and environmental design in India. Founded in 1996, Morphogenesis is an association of architects, designers, urbanists and environmentalists. The Morphogenesis approach to creativity is inspired by the evolutionary processes in nature to create built form which is optimized for the built environment and the community. Design is viewed as a result of different stimuli, ranging from climatic conditions, urban fabric, local traditions, and human activity. At Morphogenesis, sustainability is a core creative value and is practiced in the evolution of the design. The practice considers the widening scope of sustainability to be all inclusive; to include social, cultural, financial, technological and environmental sustainability. It is this inclusive nature of design that, Morphogenesis believes, will define the new emergent Indian architecture.

The work of the practice has been exhibited at several venues internationally including the Gallerie ROM in Norway and the Royal Institute of British Architects, London. The practice has been the recipient of numerous awards and accolades including the Best Learning Building, World Architecture Festival Awards 2009, Green Good Design™ Award- The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum 2009, The Architectural Review Cityscape Awards for the Best Environmental Design internationally and the Residential (Built) category, Indian Institute of Interior Designers- MK Award and the JIIA (Indian Institute of Architects) Award for excellence in architecture etc. The work has also been extensively published in both national as well as international publications including Architectural Design, Domus (Italy), Architecture Record, The Atlas of Global Architecture (Spain), The Guardian (UK) and 10+1 (Japan).