For the Love of Building

Gaurav Sanghvi and Harsh Pote want to draw on Indian heritage

Pentaspace Consultants has been named as one of the fastest growing architectural practices by government body IEDRA. Co-founders Gaurav Sanghvi and Harsh Pote nurtured the idea of starting a firm while in college at Rachana Sansad Academy of Architecture, Mumbai. In 2007, along with their architect spouses, Pragya Sanghvi and Bhakti Pote, they embarked on this dream and set up Pentaspace.

In spite of coming from a business family background, Sanghvi always wanted to be an architect. “Buildings always fascinated me, while travelling I was naturally drawn towards the monuments and the architecture of that area.”

Pote, on the other hand, grew up amid the architectural landscape, as his family is into the real estate business. His insights and interest in architecture led him to take up a part-time job at an architectural firm while he was still a school boy

Today, Pentaspace is among the leading architectural firms in the real estate market, with around 100 completed projects in housing, retail, hospitality, industrial and commercial spaces. They provide a holistic real estate experience backed by interior design and research. The co-founders with their varied background and skill sets have catapulted the firm to this stage.

“Since the beginning, we wanted to position our firm as an architectural firm. We penetrated the market as such, and then set up our interior and research department.”

Every project needs to be dealt with on its own challenges and merit. A new project comes in as a concept and passes through the development and conceptualisation stage that involves a lot of brainstorming backed by research. Their projects are in confluence with the neighbourhood, like the project Rainforest in Mumbai that is set among rainforest trees. They believe making a building more efficient in terms of running costs, efficiency and capital cost is extremely important.

As for their favourite project, Sanghavi states, “The SBUT project in Bhendi Bazaar is like a crown jewel of our projects at this stage of a life cycle, where we’ve been able to push the edge in terms of a concept and a building of that look, feel and stature.”

India has a rich architectural heritage as they feel, “We need to be more relevant to Indian heritage. We need to learn from the old, use it in the new and then create a new product.”

By Kamayni, Studio Gulmohar