Proton Therapy Centre was a closed invitation competition, held by Apollo Hospitals in 2016. The whole Proton Therapy Centre Project at that time was on planning phase, and was designed by local architects in Chennai, India. The scope of this competition was for facade design of all four sides , interior design, working drawings, and material specifications. HKS Inc.-New Delhi office was cordially invited to submit an entry.

I was involved with the facade design of the project and was working with two other junior architects. My role and responsibility was to co-design the facades, articulate their 3D models and produce the final renderings. We decided to submit two options to the client, going with two different approaches to the aesthetics and materials. However, the core concept and integrity of both designs were same at the fundamental level. Through the design choices, we intended to touch the emotions of the incoming patients and visitors, aiming to make them feel ‘lighter’ and better the moment they enter the building premises.

Unfortunately, we could not win the competition and the project was awarded to another firm. However, there was a lot to take away from this project. During our research we studied the design preferences of the client, We took a very bold approach to make our designs be different and ‘out of the box’, with intentions of making a memorable impression on the client with as relatively small scope of facade design. We learnt that this approach did not work to the scale of what we anticipated and there’s only so much wiggle room as to how much different we can do from the conventional design preferences of the client, before going too overboard.