NICK SIMONS INSTITUTE OFFICE BUILDING

The project is an office building for Nick Simons Institute covering 19,500 square feet at Sanepa, Lalitpur. The project features a two and half storey building with a basement and an extensive landscaping. The design of the building, including the material usages, has influences from the traditional Nepalese style building. However the spaces in the building have been planned for the modern office use.
The built mass has been arranged to avoid the building to look massive inspite of its size and functions incorporated into it. The Ground Floor of the building has reception, waiting, board meeting room, few offices and a training hall. The covered walkway acts as a prime connection between the main office building and the training hall. The courtyard with stone spout has been incorporated between the main building and the training hall and this space acts as a spill over area for training hall and the board meeting room. The Ground Floor also features disable access and the restrooms designed for disable. The First Floor is mostly offices with a small informal meeting room and the top floor has kitchen and dining areas. The basement of the building incorporates parking spaces for 17 cars and equal number of two wheelers in addition to the two stores and services like the pump house and an electrical room in the basement. The building has an emergency exit on the west side.
The landscaping is another prime feature in the design. The building is located in the northern side of the site with considerable large space for landscaping in the south side. This allows maximum sunlight in the built space. The terraced garden has been designed on the south side to reflect the terrace farming, which is a typical feature in the hilly regions of Nepal.
The building features environment friendly features like cavity walls with insulation, insulated roof for the room that are directly under terrace, double glazed exterior glass for doors and windows and rainwater harvesting. There is full generator back up in the building and the building features pressure system for water distribution.
All in all the idea was to create a building that reflects the quality and standard of an international organization but at the same time respects the local architectural style.