Architecture studio Archohm has completed a campus for promoting crafts in the Indian city of Lucknow, featuring a cluster of grass-roofed workshops and a spiralling shopping arcade (+ slideshow).

Awadh Shilpgram was designed by Archohm to accommodate almost 200 shops dedicated to crafts from around the region and beyond, alongside craft courts for hosting workshops, an amphitheatre, an exhibition hall and a food court.
The aim is to provide local craftspeople with a place where they can share ideas, teach, learn and sell their work directly to customers.

The buildings developed for the complex are intended to form a collage of shapes and materials that references the chaotic composition of the urban bazaars found throughout the region.
From an entrance courtyard, a spiralling structure lined with craft shops leads visitors gradually towards an open plaza at the centre of the curving building.
"An elliptical form enables a smooth corner-free circulation," explained the architects.
"It narrows down while spiralling inward, and emulates the density and vibrancy of traditional Lucknowi bazaars, which have streets that get progressively narrower."

The eight-hectare site is located close to a major highway in a rapidly developing area of the Uttar Pradesh region's capital city.

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The area's historic structures also influenced the design of the campus. In particul...