What I told ArchDaily About CBDs

Almost two years ago I told ArchDaily that CBDs would evolve into central social districts, open to everyone rather than just the people working there.

I referenced India's tech parks, and the point I made then was about integration. Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune were building their office markets outside the old commercial cores, and the CBD as a main location was never going to arrive.

This is still valid today, and tech parks are another category after all.

The most sophisticated office product I have seen in the last decade was not built in London, Frankfurt or New York. It was built where the infrastructure could not be taken for granted. Sports facilities, transport, amenities, healthcare, childcare, all integrated on site, because otherwise the talent would not show up. The circumstances forced integration, and integration produced a city within a city.

Since then the evidence has stacked up fast. Volvo Group signed 600,000 square feet in Bengaluru last quarter. Alphabet secured more space for its own operations, and India’s Smartworks became the largest flex office operator globally. Also, institutional investors such as Brookfield have been committing at a scale that only makes sense if you think this is permanent infrastructure rather than a cycle, and continue doing so.

It’s also interesting what is happening in the other direction.

Canary Wharf is not a tech park, but it is now doing the same work. Residential, life sciences, healthcare, culture, leisure, all being added to a district that was initially designed as second CBD. Vertical city concepts are appearing in London, and they are solving the same problem India solved out of necessity: a single-use district cannot hold people, and a place people will not stay in cannot hold employers. And asset values deteriorate.

India did not learn this from Europe. Europe is arriving at it now, deliberately, and paying a redevelopment premium for what India is building from the ground up.

And there is a lot to learn from it.

Link to article:

How Tech Parks Are Replacing Central Business Districts in India — part of ArchDaily’s “India: Building for Billions” series.

Thanks again for the collaboration, Ankitha Gattupalli .

https://www.archdaily.com/1023105/how-tech-parks-are-replacing-central-business-districts-in-india

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