Comments on: Perkins + Will’s Antilla “Green” Tower in Mumbai

By: chupacerveza

chupacerveza — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 01:20:40 +0000

Anon X says,”To be really green DONT MAKE ANYTHING thats not necessary.”

… even art from recycled material becomes un-green with this guideline. I think you need to revisit your stance.

By: Nico Wright

Nico Wright — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:36:16 +0000

I’d be curious to consider how this building could have been accomplished as it is, that is sustainable as well as a decadent expression of wealth, and satisfy all the parties here. Perhaps If P+W had taken the opportunity of being funded by such a massive budget (does anyone have figures on that?) to undertake research and development of new methods or products, perhaps in materials, that could then be published and shared so as to contribute to the sustainable movement in the construction and design fields. So that on beyond some pretty rendering with some green texture maps all over it, we got some technical specifications for a revolutionary new method of grey water recycling in high-rise towers? Now that might actually prove some usefulness to the project of “sustainability”. Best to back up some of that PR and Marketing with some verifiable and reproducible results. Where’s the science in this art we’ve been calling architecture of late?

I’d like to think that this is what Ms. Rich had in mind when she bemoans P+W rather thin sounding application of “green” ideals. It seems much of the discussion here has been a tad too reactionary, and not looking for answers to the aptly brought criticisms presented here.

Then again Cedric Price’s first question of his clients was often: “Do we really need this building?” He inevitably tried to talk them out of building, saying “ the problem is not that we don’t have enough buildings—rather, we have too many of them. The problem is, we don’t know how to use the ones we have.”

By: slumdweller

slumdweller — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:02:55 +0000

This building is a tasteless joke on the millions of slum dwellers of Mumbai.

By: shikin

shikin — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:19:52 +0000

i’m so interested to know about antilia tower…can i know the estimate cost antilia tower and material constuction used….can reply me..

By: Mukesh Ambani and the Absurdity of Luxury - Antilla - Mumbai - Skyscraper Palace | Orange Life Magazine

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:06:22 +0000

[...] almost six months. All the while, Ambani’s been in the press for how he’s built Antilla to be green. Now, sure, it’s great that he’s made use of environmentally sound building practices [...]

By: pemela

pemela — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 02:53:08 +0000

ooo..god!!
fantastic!!!
amazing!!
hope my husband give me house like antilla!!:)

By: pepp

pepp — Mon, 05 May 2008 01:09:42 +0000

I don’t believe this bldg is being marketed as an eco-friendly first-of-its-kind save the earth type. On the contrary, this bldg is purely a display of opulence, luxury and extravagance by someone who can afford. The architects and the sponsors are using few green principles which probably ties in with sponsors requirements.

Taj mahal got built centuries ago, don’t think there was a reason to build that back then. One thing simply to understand is that crazy powerful rich people through out the history do as they please, and if you dont agree with what they do, then be one of them and do something different to prove a point.

That’s why when I think of this bldg, I think what a waste, because Bill Gates, or Warren B could very well afford this sort of luxury but wonder what made them contribute their wealth to humanitarian causes.

By: Anon X

Anon X — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 22:53:02 +0000

so sorry… The residential green building is an eye wash since all large companies are trying to use this ‘green’ as a way to make money. Reliance strives on increasing the global warming effect with the nature of their business.
To be really green DONT MAKE ANYTHING thats not necessary. We are at a crisis so stop the BS of making green. Ask if Perkins+Will will create this building from salvaged materials. Oh NO way! ….but that is being green. We are in crisis where recylcing is already too late. We have to just reduce.

so sorry ….I feel so sorry for Reliance to live in a smog of pollution rising to his bedroom created by their own business. Has anyone try to breathe in Mumbai:)?

in addition..
so sorry …I have worked in NYC in these large firms, and have noticed the inefficeincy in their work. Rich India is willing to throw their money out for the hype of hiring american architects.

end.

By: Pallav

Pallav — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 06:54:02 +0000

This seems to be an interesting structure. Can i have information about the structural designer for this building. Also would be interested in checkingout various structural plans for the same

By: Rascacielos “verdes” » Ecoperiodico

Rascacielos “verdes” » Ecoperiodico — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 07:03:24 +0000

[...] Fuente: Inhabitat [...]

By: shocked

shocked — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 09:19:06 +0000

to further clarify, no matter how you spin it, mcmansions or huge-homes-more-than-the-space-you-really-need can never be ‘green’ in the truest sense of the word.

By: shocked

shocked — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 09:16:33 +0000

anonymous- as far as i know, a ‘huge’ home is NOT green.

By: Max

Max — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:15:23 +0000

Some comments on this and other websites naively extoll this building’s ability to employ hundreds of office workers, house their families, and contribute to a cleaner environment in Mumbai. Don’t be fooled by the greenwash here, people: this building might ‘employ’ hundreds, but only if you consider pruning houseplants, parking cars or fetching coffee a promising career. It will never become an ‘office’ building, save for the current group of employees who work in temporary offices in the basement of this active construction site. It does not, nor will it ever ‘house’ 600 people and/or their families. It will require more water, raw materials and energy to build and sustain the greenwalls than they will ever absorb in CO2 emissions. This ‘house’ is a hopelessly mis-directed ’shrine’ for a small family, who have chosen to build and fuel this unsustainable hulk rather than invest in improvements to the outdated, environmentally toxic, overtaxed, and rotting infrastructure of their city/country (on which their family business depends and profits). The issue here has nothing to do with ‘Democracy’ or letting an individual reward their own sucess/ambition because they feel they have somehow earned it. The Ambanis still could have rewarded themselves handsomely at a far more modest scale than this. It would have been a far greater testament to their political, social and marketing intelligence if they were to have NOT spent the excessive amounts of money required to build this ‘anti-monument ‘and instead spent it re-building infrastructure, cleaning up the environment or assisting the millions of impoverished Indians who must share their tin-shack domains with feral animals feeding off the garbage that chokes Mumbai’s urban landscape. WAKE UP humanity! This building is THE poster child for the absolute WRONG direction we must go to preserve what is left of our humanity and our world…

By: Perkins + Will’s Antilla “Green” Tower in Mumbai | Soundscapes by Catherine Van Holder

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 08:56:19 +0000

[...] A spate of green skyscrapers have shot up in the last few years, as people learn that buildings account for more CO2 emissions than any other single source. At the same time, we’ve seen a rise in greenwashing by companies recognizing the market value of green and making false claims to fit the category. In an exemplary meeting of these two trends, we have just discovered a building in progress in Mumbai that calls itself the greenest of all the buildings in the Maximum City of 13 million people. If ever there were a literal interpretation of a deceptive green façade, this is it. read more [...]

By: simon seasons

simon seasons — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 22:06:53 +0000

A single residence regardless of it’s capacity to claim green credentials via materials or design, fails the criteria on the basis that one family is using enough resources to satisfy the needs of thousands. Here in Australia a company called Delphin Lend Lease is proposing to build a ‘green’ development of 13,000 Mc Mansions, with no site analysis for individual dwellings, no proposed parks, no childcare centres, etc. Its claimed green credentials seem to be based on the fact that it retains storm water runoff in ‘lifestyle’ ponds, that the houses may have a roof water tank and/or a solar panel or solar hot water heater. Otherwise the houses are all enormous, hideous brick veneers with aspects ignored in favour of street frontage, hundreds of light bulbs, three and four car garages, three room per person and ‘no single mothers please’.
The development is to be called ‘Lockerbie’. I would call it another ‘plan crash’. To top it off, the city of Melbourne introduced a green belt ban to stop the expansion of the city and this proposal is for land just outside of the defined boundry, as if to emphasise the point that these structures are built primarily as a ‘look at me’ exercise and not as a sustainable living intergrated home.
One thing I look forward to is that the climate crisis will simply run this type of ‘no design’ development over like a greyhound bus. We don’t allow barbers and butchers to perform surgery on humans anymore. One must be suitably qualified to practice medicine. When are we going to make it that designers and architects and not developers and clients are the ones suitably qualified to make decisions of a sustainable manner so that our cities function sustainably and so that we all have a future.