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The Dilemma of Gulberg’s Office Spaces

We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us. ????????????????????????????????????????????? Sir Winston Churchill

I read this quote on a colleague’s WhatsApp bio, and thought it very aptly described the dilemma posed by the question of our architectural identity. What kind of buildings do we want to shape? What do we want them to shape us into? I took this question and put it to the places many of us spend most of our time away from home in – our workspaces. Sitting at my desk in an office room four stories above road level and looking outside to a grey Lahori sky punctuated by Gulberg’s tall buildings, I often catch myself wondering whether this is really the way we ought to have done it.

As far as the Lahori work ethic goes, as a people we are fond of late nights and sleeping in. The heat decides for us the more optimal hours of the day we find ourselves being most productive in, and usually that excludes the afternoons. Looking at the state of affairs as mentioned, a 9 to 5 seems horribly inadequate – maybe that is the reason why many people I know find themselves late to the office more often than not. Have years of educational and corporate training not taught us how to get to work on time every single day?

Surveying the general lot of office spaces in Lahore, there seems to be many disappointments in store for anyone who wishes to start their own. As a professional, I’ve worked in smelly basements and unpleasantly small rooms where, as employees, we had to constantly face towards a dull, white-washed wall, with no choice but to put in long hours to appease the authorities in charge.

With developers taking over the construction style of these office buildings, it’s no surprise they chose to go along with the more international, industrially accepted style of architecture. This particular style of architecture might encourage mass construction for a growing population, but it also inculcates a sense of alienation for a people who might prefer a more familiar territory – a greater sense of desi, for lack of a better word. Proponents of the International Style will argue that it helps our modern material express their potential for the future – but do we really want developers in charge of our buildings to take on the, dare I say it, lazier route to giving us space for professional work? In the words of Peter Cook, “Block, block, block, bigger block, block, block!”

In addition to the rather unpleasing aesthetic that the collection of these buildings presents to anyone visiting Gulberg, there is the not so small problem of maintenance. Mehdi Maloof was not far off when he wrote “Gandi Si Building”, sometimes I catch myself humming,

Mein gandi si building mein kaam krti hun, gandi si building mein

A lack of cleanliness is the norm, where cleaners complain about being underpaid despite the hefty rent the owners of these buildings take from the offices they lease. Maybe a change of design would have helped instill a deeper sense of belonging and ownership – something that humans should expect from places they spend at least eight hours of their twenty four.

I took to Nayyar Ali Dada’s designed building for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan to see if his more vernacular style of building changed the way employees felt about their workplace. Sure enough, there were some drastic differences to how people spent their day. I could write about the accessibility standards followed there being as distressing as elsewhere, but I shall elaborate more on the identity aspect of design for now.

A greater sense of community seems to emanate from the atmosphere. There is a balcony where one can share a cigarette and a cup of tea with another coworker, and stay to enjoy the weather. One colleague can walk into another’s room to talk about their day or coordinate a meeting. This is in stark opposition to rented spaces where people hesitate to knock on each other’s doors, and for good reason. I could blame the design entirely for not being neighbor friendly, but there is a general consensus now for what social behaviors are too intrusive in public spaces. These social intrusions largely apply to women more than they do to men, who can assimilate with unknown groups of people due to shared smoking habits, which is more of a taboo for women. There is no shared space where one can go to stretch their legs, unless one wishes to circle around dinghy corridors very reminiscent of ancient Hindu architecture – are we subconsciously recreating our diverse South Asian heritage?

Continuing on from Nayyar Ali’s known use of definitive geometry, the rectangular building plan converges onto an octagonal central hall – an element that traditionally binds a building together. A modern interpretation of this space can be seen in our malls and higher end office buildings; atriums that actually serve to add quality openings to the multiple floors that host these office spaces. Where buildings have been constructed with the sole purpose of being used monetarily, however, there is merely a covered square in the middle of the building. These are often incorporated so as to give rooms in the middle of the building an opening or a window, even though such openings could be termed more impractical than actually functional as they do not serve the occupants they are designed for. The use of arched openings and curves while maintaining a polygon-ic sense creates an easy movement through the building. Rounding down the stairs, one tends to fall into a flow.

My comparison between a bigger, more established office building and a tower built for renting out spaces might seem unfair, but there exists an alternative whereby we can abolish the need for mass construction for actual quality spaces that adhere to local values. What is even more telling is the fact that many of these Fordian buildings are empty – there are not enough people who wish to rent spaces like these. Why build so many plazas when people would gladly adopt a working style that they hold familiarity with? A style they feel safer in? I intend to use the pun in the previous sentence to hint at the many safety hazards that these buildings contain – small “accidents” waiting to happen!

A well-known fact about these tall buildings is the unsustainable use of glass. Too warm in the summers, too cold in the winters – I’d say Nayyar Ali Dada’s controlled placement of windows in HRCP is in direct relation to the local climate. However, the lack of maintenance of the building is something the people in charge should be held accountable for, a problem common to both typologies of office spaces.

While I am not advocating entirely for Nayyar Ali Dada’s methodology of design against the modified 'International' style adopted by our developers, it’s time we put into commercial practice architectural ideals that are taught in our schools. With thousands of students graduating every year, it does not make sense for them to look towards joining an existing practice that reinforces the same flow of capitalist architecture without paying them their due for the work they put in for them. The debate is not unheard of, but needs to be talked about more loudly for things to start taking effect in the real world. Will graduates be given the time to rethink our buildings and conduct social surveys that could be physically manifested before they dive into ‘get rich’ schemes? If the architectural hierarchy wanted to make it possible, they could find the balance and start being more generous with an architectural charity – isn’t being an architect for the people what we claim to be?

I do not wish to let go of the view I work against every day. I wish to find a space where I can use that view and feel at home, not having to think about how my plain white office building could render me colorless as a person, despite belonging to one of the most vibrant cultures of the world.