Saint Gobain glass factory, spread over 250 acres was built in the 1980’s, is typical of its time with little thought being given to a landscape plan.

Fortunately the company’s MD, Mr. Santhanam is a keen lover of nature, so we were called to make the compound green in 2002. The biggest challenge was to cut down on the water requirement, for the plant by harvesting rain water.

As Chennai has two seasonal monsoons, it is imperative that water is harvested. Mr. Gopinath, an expert on water harvesting, worked out the slopes & the system for tapping all the roof water. We designed a large tank over 8 acres, to capture 77,000 kilo liters of water. The tank is designed as a village stepped tank, with five water jets for aeration.

The other thought was to use glass in landscape as sculpture, garden structures, water walls etc. The use of vegetation is to create a mass effect as volumes of space are big.

The overall effort is to give relaxation and tranquility to the factory workers, through landscape.