Uncertain of what to do in Mumbai this weekend? Right here’s an concept: Make a journey to town’s south, the plush neighbourhood of Ballard Property specifically. As you stroll down Calicut Highway – a road named after the merchants from Calicut (present-day Kozhikode) who settled within the metropolis – you’re prone to see a two-storeyed architectural marvel, the IF.BE. What started its journey as an ice manufacturing facility in 1878, now serves as an area for inventive minds to debate artwork and concepts.
When IF.BE isn’t internet hosting a stand-up present by comic Masoom Rajwani, it finds itself overwhelmed by cinema aficionados. Sure, the scramble for a front-row seat to director Zoya Akhtar’s session on storytelling is actual.
When these 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 transformation occur? An “virtually poetic” expertise that Kamal Malik — an architect with virtually 5 many years of expertise — had when his eyes first met the virtually 150-year-old constructing.
“My first encounter 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 by the gantry and giving approach to a courtyard shaded by the cover of an enormous banyan tree. A fertile surroundings for contemplation and transformation,” he says.
An ice manufacturing facility, a banyan tree, and the delivery of an concept
As you set sight on IF.BE — an acronym for Ice Manufacturing unit Bellary Property — which additionally has a deeper that means as Malik will clarify later, you could discover it onerous to imagine that what’s now a inventive hub for the humanities, was an ice manufacturing facility a century in the past. So order your self some matar khasta rolls (fried finger meals with inexperienced pea filling) whereas I regale you with a historical past lesson.
IF.BE’s partitions, 150 years in the past, could be aware of conversations of manufacturing facility employees that ranged from whether or not the gantry was working correctly to issues about with the ability to meet the ice demand of fish markets in South Bombay.
Ambico Ice Manufacturing unit (because it was identified then) loved its recognition for many years earlier than a manufacturing facility in New Bombay took over operations. “Ice first got here to India on a ship from Boston within the 1800s,” Malik informs.
This ice, historical past tells us, was saved in ice homes in Mumbai however India’s warmth posed a problem. So, businessmen Nanabhoy Byramjee Jeejeebhoy and JA Forbes launched Mumbai’s first ice manufacturing facility in Ballard Property in 1878. It was christened ‘Bombay Ice Manufacturing Co’ earlier than being rebranded as ‘Ambico Ice Manufacturing unit’.
It was 2019, when Malik first set sight on the constructing, he acquired it however with no plans to renovate or repurpose the piece of historical past. The banyan tree, nevertheless, would etch a picture in Malik’s thoughts that might finally change into the seed that might reinvigorate the institution.
“On the time, I had no concept, in any respect, of both buying such an area or desirous to do one thing with it. However the picture of the banyan tree stayed with me,” he remembers. A number of months later, Malik discovered himself saying a ‘sure’ to the undertaking, joined by architects Amardeep Tony Singh and Abhijit Mehta.
Led by Malik Structure, the crew launched into the hunt to present the ice manufacturing facility a second life.
At present, 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 devices and books; the ‘Ice Manufacturing unit’ designed for performances; ‘The Cathedral’ the place the majority of exhibitions happen; and the advantageous eating Indian restaurant, Native Bombay, the place company gasoline up.
IF.BE: Stitching sustainability with historical past
The identify of the undertaking and the addition of the dot between the phrases doesn’t skip my consideration. Elaborating on it, Malik shares, “The dot — that hole between ‘if’ and ‘be’ symbolises time. If and be — the probabilities.” And that is basically the message that the architects have tried to convey, the liberty that comes with the humanities.
As Malik particulars the restoration, one factor is clear: the rendering was rooted in sincere appreciation of the constructing’s historical past. The tip objective wasn’t merely aesthetics, however to protect the antiquity of the previous.
The 30 months of “painstaking efforts” had been directed in the direction of retaining present particulars that performed a task within the constructing’s legacy, in a extra nuanced vogue. Malik provides that touches of sustainability had been included in each manner attainable. For months, the crew scraped away at outdated plaster, which yielded brickwork and classic Burma teak woodwork beneath. Go searching and also you’ll discover in some locations the colors don’t fairly match. Malik underscores that no makes an attempt had been made to shine the teak wooden surfaces. This lends a rugged, uncooked contact to the staircase on the Native Restaurant and Bar, its roof construction and flooring, in addition to the Ice Manufacturing unit roof construction.
So what if there are mismatches? It solely provides to the authenticity of the area, the architect believes. That being stated, he provides that in locations the place it was necessitated, security upgrades had been made. These embody structural reinforcements to the partitions and roof.
The area that took probably the most quantity of brainstorming, Malik shares, was the principle Ice Manufacturing unit, sub-station, chilly storage, and the ice-cubing space. “These required intensive examination and surgical intervention by way of retrofits to stabilise crumbling, warped, and leaking partitions, sagging roofs and trusses.”
As in each journey story, probably the most thrilling half is when a treasure is found. When the crew stumbled upon big cooling coils that had been as soon as used to fabricate ice, they had been thrilled.
These have additionally featured within the restoration. They’re embedded within the glass flooring in the direction of the doorway. One other treasure lay in uncovering the historic gantry that after facilitated the transport of ice slabs. “The room was a ‘big ice tray’ the place ice was manufactured. There have been four-foot-deep pits with refrigerant coils operating alongside that might freeze the water within the pits. The large ice blocks had been then picked up utilizing a crane and moved to an space the place they might be lower and distributed for his or her remaining function.” Throughout restoration, the raised flooring was wooden panelled and may be opened to disclose the pits.
By means of the architect’s lens
It’s virtually as if 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 bunch of British passengers board steamers, and remnants of the colonial period, the South Bombay pincode is sort of a bubble frozen in time. Copious quantities of ice had been manufactured each day, which made their manner from the manufacturing facility to the eating places, fish markets and vegetable markets throughout South Bombay.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t simply the beguiling historical past of the ice manufacturing facility that drew Malik to this undertaking. “It was additionally the intention to transform this place into a gathering spot for creative-minded people. There isn’t such a spot within the metropolis the place architects and designers can meet up,” he claims.
Even initiatives which can be touted as sustainable lately subvert this declare. However Malik was eager that the restoration of the ice manufacturing facility stayed true to its intentions. The explanations for this lie in his childhood fascinations, he explains. “Rising up in Shimla, I used to be extraordinarily drawn to nature. These experiences have been my information on this journey of structure and design. There may be nothing extra sustainable than nature itself, and thru my work, I’ve tried to take a look at a extra significant strategy to sustainability. This implies understanding the area we’re constructing in, the local weather of the area, the natural world, the native constructing supplies, 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 undertaking, he says repurposing was key. “It was 80 p.c adaptive restoration and 20 p.c architectural intervention,” Malik notes.
However, he factors out, “Restoring a 145-year-old construction isn’t as simple. Assume decay, outdated, broken brick partitions, defects within the gentle trusses, and outdated woodwork with cracks. Wherever we discovered that we wanted to insert a steel plate to carry two items of wooden which had separated, we began to develop some very attention-grabbing detailing to have the ability to obtain this.”
That being stated, care was taken to not use any cement within the restoration course of. “We found that the brickwork that lay below the plaster was a composite brick and wooden mixture. This gave stability to the partitions. It additionally took care of the seismic features. We restored the wooden and the brick. The one new materials that we purchased on website was a really small amount of light-weight metal, which was used to cowl the courtyard area and for the galvanised iron roofs.” It’s virtually as if the constructing’s previous gave approach to its future.
At present, IF.BE is an architecturally putting oasis of sustainability with element in every nook. However, Malik says he’s biased in the direction of the banyan tree. “It’s symbolic, virtually a metaphor for a seed of transformation, one thing that IF.BE has been by way of.”
Edited by Arunava Banerjee; Footage supply: Kamal Malik
