Mega-Scale Projects Need Suitable Building Transportation

Elevators, escalators and moving walks are vital to the nation’s evolving built environment.

The science and scale of projects in India has gone through an absolute transformation. Today, it is not uncommon to see projects up to 20 million ft² with values easily in the range of INR20 billion (US$28.2 million) or much more. The same holds true in terms of height and number of floors. It is not uncommon today to see buildings of 30, 40, 50 or even more stories. All this has led to a need for modern and efficient transportation — both vertical and horizontal — for users of such buildings. 

This has also created a need for high-tech, sustainable systems that not only have reasonable capital costs, but corresponding operational costs. For example, some of the projects CP Kukreja Architects (CPKA) is doing of this scale warrant out-of-the box solutions. The East Delhi Hub project being designed by CPKA, a one-of-a-kind project conceptualized along the lines of the smart city, is one of India’s first transit-oriented development projects. The project is spread over 86 acres of land and has a built-up area of more than 15 million ft², including a 100-story tower. This requires innovative solutions for movement — both horizontally and vertically. 

Vertically, the towers range from 30 to 50 and even 100 stories. Horizontally, the project, because it is transit-oriented, has a mix of uses that requires fast movement of a large number of people. 

Similar to this are the needs for the projects of the India International Convention Centre (IICC) and Pragati Maidan, both of which are mega exhibition and convention centers coming up in Delhi. The IICC project has a value of INR220 billion (US$3.1 billion) and is spread over 225 acres. With this scale of project development happening throughout the country, it is important that the transportation industry keeps pace in terms of innovation and in coming up with sustainable horizontal- and vertical-transportation solutions.