Architect - kamal sagar

"Natural materials had more Character"

"The word "luxury" is more used by

the media than anyone else"

He believed that natural materials had more character,

brought the building to life and aged gracefully unlike
artificial materials, which did not change with time.

With his core design philosophy of natural exteriors for all

his buildings, to help them blend with the natural
submitted to - ar. lalu yadav /
landscape. ar. abhinav chaturvedi
submitted by - shourya
2nd year / 4th sem
theory of design
about
Kamal Sagar
Born - 16 July 1969 (age 52)
Nationality - Indian
Alma mater - Indian Institute of Technology,
Kharagpur
Occupation - Director, Total Environment
Spouse(s) Shibanee Sagar

An Indian Architect, designer, real estate developer,

restaurateur, and music enthusiast, based in Bangalore,
India. He is the founder, and chairman of Total
Environment Building Systems, Founder and
Chairman, Total Environment Hospitality (Windmills
Craftworks).
EARLY LIFE Kamal graduated from IIT Kharagpur[1] in 1992, with a degree
in Architecture. After a short stint with Omni Architects at
Lexington, Kentucky, in the US, he returned to India and
designed the Poonawalla Stud Farms at Hadapsar and Theur,
Pune, and also built them out in a span of just 8 months, in time
for the Asian Racing Conference by Asian Racing Federation on
27 January 1995. At the farms, he extensively used exposed
brick masonry, sourced from the state of Kerala, evolving a
special technique with the help of steel spacers to bring out the
character of every individual brick – in line with his core design
philosophy of natural exteriors for all his buildings, to help them
blend with the natural landscape. He believed that natural
materials had more character, brought the building to life and
aged gracefully unlike artificial materials, which did not change
with time.
career Kamal moved to Bangalore in 1995, and after working for 4 months with
Mistry Architects, started his architectural practice, first in his own
name, and then, in the name of Shibanee & Kamal Architects, along with
wife and partner, Shibanee In 1996, in his search for a one-bedroom
apartment, he realized just how bad the state of large scale housing
projects was, and saw tremendous scope to make a difference in this area.
After several failed attempts in trying to get Developers to accept his
design ideas, he decided to take on the task of developing and
constructing his projects himself, and not just designing them and
founded Total Environment, a construction and real estate development
company, that would build out his designs without compromise. Total
Environment has since, built 2.5 million square feet of high quality,
individually customized and furnished space, mostly homes, across
Bangalore and Pune. Leading through design and a combination of
technology & craftsmanship, each Total Environment home is a
sensitively detailed, high-quality space that celebrates nature by
embracing it.
starting phase
Kamal’s work has focused on mostly on creating warm spaces and a high quality experience in high-
rise housing projects, through homes that embrace nature. He was surprised to see how people all
over the world could build large housing projects where homes did not have gardens – he felt that a
garden was a very basic human need.
Kamal’s work has focused on mostly on creating
warm spaces and a high quality experience in
high-rise housing projects, through homes that
embrace nature.[13] He was surprised to see
how people all over the world could build large housing projects where homes did not have
gardens – he felt that a garden was a very basic human need.

Kamal introduced the idea of a garden with every home. Referred as Gardens in the Sky.[14]
In 1996, at his project Green is the Colour, Bangalore, he created gardens cantilevering in
alternate directions on consecutive floors. When his customers refused to pay for these gardens,
he decided to go ahead and provide them at his own cost. Over the years, he experimented with
various different formats for these gardens, with most rooms in each apartment, opening onto
these gardens through large wood frame sliding glass panel
work

Kamal also believed that the furniture in a home is integral to the planning and layout of the home
and cannot be excluded from the scope of the design of the home and, from 2002, started designing
and building most of his homes as completely furnished homes. He also developed a software
platform through which he brought design to every single home buyer – a platform that allows a
home-buyer to individually customize[15] every detail of his house – from wall layouts and furniture
layouts to materials and finishes – down to the detail of the shelving in the wardrobes.

projects
1995 Poonawalla Stud Farms, Hadpsar, Pune, India
1999 Ion Idea Corporate Campus,[17] Whitefield, Bangalore, India
2000 Bougainvillea, Vibhuthipura, Bangalore, India
2000 Green is the Colour, BTM Layout, Bangalore, India
2001 The Good Earth,[18] Ulsoor, Bangalore, India
2001 Webb India Limited[19] – Corporate Office & workshops, Bommasandra, Bangalore, India
2004 Shine On, Rahath Bagh, Bangalore, India
2004 Time, Indiranagar, Bangalore, India
2006 Footprints, Indiranagar, Bangalore, India
2006 Residence for Navin Dhananjay, Hennur Road, Bangalore, India
2008 Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head, Sarjapur Road, Bangalore, India
2009 Orange Blossom Special, Uday Baugh, Pune, India
2010 Greensleeves, Singasandra, Bangalore, India
2015 Windmills of Your Mind,[20] Whitefield, Bangalore, India
2015 The Magic Faraway Tree, Phase 1, Kanakapura Road, Bangalore, India 2015 Learning to Fly
awards and recoginition
Architect of the Year Awards and Habitat Award for Apartment Planning, from A+D
Spectrum Foundation, 2003, for The Good Earth
Award Institution Year Project
Best Group Housing Project JK Cements - Architect of the Year Awards 2003 The Good
Earth, Bangalore
Habitat Award for Apartment Planning Architecture+Design Spectrum Foundation 2003
The Good Earth, Bangalore
Habitat Award for Apartment Planning Architecture+Design Spectrum Foundation 2005
Time, Bangalore
Best Residential Development CNBC Arabia 2009 Windmills of Your Mind, Bangalore
Best Residential Architecture CNBC Arabia 2009 Windmills of Your Mind, Bangalore
Best Residential Architecture CNBC Arabia 2009 Windmills of Your Mind, Bangalore
Best Innovative Design Credai Bangalore 2013 Windmills of Your Mind, Bangalore
stories

Shibanee Sagar and Kamal Sagar

Architects, they are the brains behind Bangalore-based home builder Total Environment
Their Challenge: Offering customised homes with gardens at apartment-like prices
How They Did It: Rejected outsourced construction, developed in-house capabilities, built own software
What Next: Scale experience and know-how to much larger projects, expand footprint beyond (primarily)
Bangalore
This has happened because Total Environment has skilfully straddled the space between custom,
architect-designed homes that not everyone can afford; and mass-produced apartments that not
everyone will like.

kamal says....
“I realised early in my career that Indian clients don’t usually want to pay their architects fairly. This
leads to many architects surviving by taking money from contractors. But as an architect I wanted the
contractor to be in my control, which is not possible if he is paying me,” says Sagar.

“We didn’t offer customisations in our first project but people did them anyway. So we started
offering it formally,” says Sagar.

“Doing maintenance is a thankless task because people don’t want to spend money on it. We are still
incurring losses on it after all these years because in most cases we end up solving problems at our
cost. But we also realised it is the best source of customer inputs that can feed back into the designs
of our next project,” says Sagar.