Designed by Anagram Architects, South Asian Human Rights Documentation Centre (SAHRDC) is a non-governmental organization which seeks to investigate, document and disseminate information about human rights. A small office with limited resources, the SAHRDC also runs an internship programme attracting scholars from universities in India and abroad. It required an office to be made on a 50 sqm plot emphasizing spatial efficiency and cost-effective construction.

The site is at a busy street corner with essentially pedestrian traffic. As the site is not very large, the acoustic and visual intrusion of the street activity into workspaces was a key concern.

The method of construction adopted had to optimize the space available on site and a modest budget.
The orientation of the site is such that the longer 10m side is exposed to direct sun throughout the day. Reducing the resulting solar thermal gain was an important design generator.

Although some fortification against the street was required, it was crucial for the façade ?converse? with the external activity. The external wall is conceived as an animated, dynamic skin reflecting the bustle of the street and activating what would otherwise have been a mundane façade with minimal fenestrations. The porosity of the wall maintains a degree of privacy while playfully engaging with the street corner.

Efficient Space utilization is achieved by creating a single consolidated volume on each floor to be flexibly partitioned as pe...