The ambiguity of spaces

Martand Khosla has impeccable architectural lineage. Father Romi is a well-regarded architect who, after qualifying as an economist, decided that architecture was his calling.

Since then the father has made a mark for himself in the field, working right now as principal consultant to the United Nations for its urban renewal projects in Bulgaria and Cyprus. He is also a tourism infrastructure consultant to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation for China, as well as principal consultant to UNESCO in Palestine for establishing schools.

But this is not about the father, it's about the son who, though not yet on such august panels, is making a mark quietly with his design sensibility in India. One of Martand Khosla's first independent architecture projects, after he returned from the UK where he studied at the prestigious The Architecture Association, was the college canteen at the Jamia Milia Islamia university in Delhi.

College canteens in India are dull, dreary places, more conducive to festering mold than provoking intellectual debate over endless rounds of chai. Says Khosla of his first visit to the Jamia site, "It was claustrophobic and full of flies."

Realising that the college did not have the budget to air-condition its canteen, Khosla decided that it would be appropriate to use the space in a way that would embrace Delhi's weather (the nicer bits) as well as have an enclosed area where the actual cooking and food storage was being done.

He explains, "The space is not completely open or completely closed. It's an ambiguous space. It helps straddle Delhi's extreme weather conditions even as it embraces it when the weather is right."

The canteen ends where the proposed art gallery's (also designed by Khosla) projection area begins, thereby ensuring some sort of cultural continuity in a space that often functions as the venue of a riveting adda.

The canteen, which has steel columns and beams, has been made out of waste marble which adds to its futuristic look while being, at the same time, extremely functional. Says Khosla, "You can actually just hose down the building. None of the problems of having it whitewashed and all that are there."

The response to the canteen has been more than respectable. Wallpaper, the uber cool magazine that features cutting-edge design from all over the world, is featuring the canteen in one of its forthcoming editions, much to Khosla's delight. He says with a smile, "The canteen has caught people's imagination."

Jamia isn't Khosla's only success. He has managed to impress the Apeejay owners