The Jewel Box is designed to retail precious stones, and accommodate administrative offices. The building is shaped by both program and the geometries of crystals.
A series of design processes then dictate the malleability of the facades – our first inferences stemmed from raw crystal and its highly fractured attributes. We then aimed to rationalize the facets through several stages of refinement while ensuring a perceptible relationship between fenestration and the internal functions. However on the outside, the ‘bevels’ aspire to camouflage this relationship and become many parts of a homogeneous whole.
The beveled façade is 75mm thick, cast-in situ using ferrocement technology and light enough to be hung off the main RC structure. On the inside, the ‘bevels’ create a variety of edge conditions; therefore, each floor therefore gets a different set of views - of the immediate and distant context.
