Not sure of what to do in Mumbai this weekend? Right here’s an concept: Take a shuttle to the town’s south, the luxurious neighbourhood of Ballard Property particularly. As you stroll down Calicut Highway – a side road named after the buyers from Calicut (present-day Kozhikode) who settled within the town – you might be prone to see a two-storeyed architectural surprise, the IF.BE. What started its adventure as an ice manufacturing unit in 1878, now serves as an area for artistic minds to speak about artwork and concepts.
When IF.BE isn’t web hosting a stand-up display through comic Masoom Rajwani, it reveals itself crushed through cinema aficionados. Sure, the scramble for a front-row seat to director Zoya Akhtar’s consultation on storytelling is actual.
When those maestros aren’t gracing the dais, there are meditative motion workshops, movie screenings and artwork exhibitions to join. IF.BE’s social calendar lives as much as its definition of an area the place architects, designers and artists can converge and collaborate.
How did this change occur? An “virtually poetic” enjoy that Kamal Malik — an architect with virtually 5 many years of enjoy — had when his eyes first met the just about 150-year-old construction.
“My first come across with the Ice Manufacturing unit is vividly etched in my reminiscence! Daylight streaming in from the north-light Burma teak trusses and piercing the blocks of ice being moved through the gantry and giving method to a courtyard shaded through the cover of an enormous banyan tree. A fertile surroundings for contemplation and transformation,” he says.
An ice manufacturing unit, a banyan tree, and the start of an concept
As you put sight on IF.BE — an acronym for Ice Manufacturing unit Bellary Property — which additionally has a deeper that means as Malik will give an explanation for later, you could to find it arduous to consider that what’s now an artistic hub for the humanities, was once an ice manufacturing unit a century in the past. So order your self some matar khasta rolls (fried finger meals with inexperienced pea filling) whilst I regale you with a historical past lesson.
IF.BE’s partitions, 150 years in the past, can be aware of conversations of manufacturing unit staff that ranged from whether or not the gantry was once running correctly to considerations about having the ability to meet the ice call for of fish markets in South Bombay.
Ambico Ice Manufacturing unit (because it was once identified then) loved its reputation for many years sooner than a manufacturing unit in New Bombay took over operations. “Ice first got here to India on a boat from Boston within the 1800s,” Malik informs.
This ice, historical past tells us, was once saved in ice properties in Mumbai however India’s warmth posed a problem. So, businessmen Nanabhoy Byramjee Jeejeebhoy and JA Forbes introduced Mumbai’s first ice manufacturing unit in Ballard Property in 1878. It was once christened ‘Bombay Ice Production Co’ sooner than being rebranded as ‘Ambico Ice Manufacturing unit’.
It was once 2019, when Malik first set sight at the construction, he bought it however and not using a plans to renovate or repurpose the piece of historical past. The banyan tree, on the other hand, would etch a picture in Malik’s thoughts that will ultimately transform the seed that will reinvigorate the status quo.
“On the time, I had no thought, by any means, of both obtaining this type of area or in need of to do one thing with it. However the symbol of the banyan tree stayed with me,” he remembers. A couple of months later, Malik discovered himself pronouncing a ‘sure’ to the venture, joined through architects Amardeep Tony Singh and Abhijit Mehta.
Led through Malik Structure, the workforce embarked at the quest to offer the ice manufacturing unit a 2nd lifestyles.
These days, IF.BE is a ten,000-square-foot area that boasts 5 sections — ‘The Banyan Tree Café’; ‘The Substation’, which is a studying room and store for architectural tools and books; the ‘Ice Manufacturing unit’ designed for performances; ‘The Cathedral’ the place the majority of exhibitions happen; and the superb eating Indian eating place, Local Bombay, the place visitors gasoline up.
IF.BE: Sewing sustainability with historical past
The title of the venture and the addition of the dot between the phrases does now not skip my consideration. Elaborating on it, Malik stocks, “The dot — that hole between ‘if’ and ‘be’ symbolises time. If and be — the chances.” And that is necessarily the message that the architects have tried to put across, the liberty that incorporates the humanities.
As Malik main points the recovery, something is clear: the rendering was once rooted in truthful appreciation of the construction’s historical past. The top purpose wasn’t merely aesthetics, however to keep the antiquity of the previous.
The 30 months of “painstaking efforts” had been directed in opposition to maintaining present main points that performed a task within the construction’s legacy, in a extra nuanced model. Malik provides that touches of sustainability had been integrated in each and every means imaginable. For months, the workforce scraped away at outdated plaster, which yielded brickwork and antique Burma teak woodwork beneath. Go searching and also you’ll realize in some puts the colors don’t rather fit. Malik underscores that no makes an attempt had been made to shine the teak picket surfaces. This lends a rugged, uncooked contact to the staircase on the Local Eating place and Bar, its roof construction and floor, in addition to the Ice Manufacturing unit roof construction.
So what if there are mismatches? It handiest provides to the authenticity of the distance, the architect believes. That being stated, he provides that during puts the place it was once necessitated, protection upgrades had been made. Those come with structural reinforcements to the partitions and roof.
The gap that took essentially the most quantity of brainstorming, Malik stocks, was once the principle Ice Manufacturing unit, sub-station, chilly garage, and the ice-cubing space. “Those required in depth exam and surgical intervention thru retrofits to stabilise crumbling, warped, and leaking partitions, sagging roofs and trusses.”
As in each and every journey tale, essentially the most thrilling section is when a treasure is came upon. When the workforce stumbled upon massive cooling coils that had been as soon as used to fabricate ice, they had been extremely joyful.
Those have additionally featured within the recovery. They’re embedded within the glass flooring in opposition to the doorway. Every other treasure lay in uncovering the ancient gantry that after facilitated the shipping of ice slabs. “The room was once a ‘massive ice tray’ the place ice was once manufactured. There have been four-foot-deep pits with refrigerant coils operating along that will freeze the water within the pits. The large ice blocks had been then picked up the usage of a crane and moved to a space the place they might be lower and disbursed for his or her ultimate goal.” All the way through recovery, the raised flooring was once picket panelled and will also be opened to expose the pits.
Throughout the architect’s lens
It’s virtually as though time hasn’t ticked throughout the Ballard Property neighbourhood of South Mumbai. With its neoclassical structure, defunct railway station, which as soon as noticed a number of British passengers board steamers, and remnants of the colonial technology, the South Bombay pincode is nearly a bubble frozen in time. Copious quantities of ice had been manufactured each day, which made their means from the manufacturing unit to the eating places, fish markets and vegetable markets throughout South Bombay.
On the other hand, it wasn’t simply the beguiling historical past of the ice manufacturing unit that drew Malik to this venture. “It was once additionally the purpose to transform this position into a gathering spot for creative-minded folks. There isn’t this type of position within the town the place architects and architects can join up,” he claims.
Even initiatives which are touted as sustainable this present day subvert this declare. However Malik was once prepared that the recovery of the ice manufacturing unit stayed true to its intentions. The explanations for this lie in his adolescence fascinations, he explains. “Rising up in Shimla, I used to be extraordinarily interested in nature. The ones reviews had been my information on this adventure of structure and design. There will also be not anything extra sustainable than nature itself, and thru my paintings, I’ve attempted to take a look at a extra significant option to sustainability. This implies figuring out the area we’re construction in, the local weather of the area, the wildlife, the native construction fabrics, and social and historic influences.”
This acts like a matrix from which Malik’s concepts emerge.
Proper for the reason that nascent phases of the venture, he says repurposing was once key. “It was once 80 p.c adaptive recovery and 20 p.c architectural intervention,” Malik notes.
However, he issues out, “Restoring a 145-year-old construction isn’t as easy. Suppose decay, outdated, broken brick partitions, defects within the mild trusses, and outdated woodwork with cracks. Anyplace we discovered that we had to insert a steel plate to carry two items of picket which had separated, we began to broaden some very fascinating detailing so that you can do so.”
That being stated, care was once taken not to use any cement within the recovery procedure. “We came upon that the brickwork that lay below the plaster was once a composite brick and picket aggregate. This gave balance to the partitions. It additionally took care of the seismic sides. We restored the picket and the brick. The one new subject material that we purchased on web page was once an overly small amount of light-weight metal, which was once used to hide the courtyard area and for the galvanised iron roofs.” It’s virtually as though the construction’s previous gave method to its long run.
These days, IF.BE is an architecturally putting oasis of sustainability with element in each and every nook. However, Malik says he’s biased in opposition to the banyan tree. “It’s symbolic, virtually a metaphor for a seed of transformation, one thing that IF.BE has been thru.”
Edited through Arunava Banerjee; Footage supply: Kamal Malik