Questioning its own material, its own strength and its own capabilities, Quintuple, a surrealistic approach to building design takes a humorous tone seeming to push it’s neighbors’ boundaries or to be soon, crumbled by it.

The mixed-use building is designed under conditions which are limited by its dense urban context. The plot shares its walls with the neighboring buildings, conducing the project into a linear geometry. The result is a single facet elevation design.

The skin is a story. It celebrates its own identity. For a client who deals in construction explosives, the challenge was to interpret the emotion of the product manufactured by the company onto elevation. As a dialogue between a contemporary artist and the skin, the facade draws a parallel comparison between concrete and paper; where concrete plays the role of a contortionist.

Creased and Folded like the five folds of a paper, the elevation is unified by a flat rectangular bottom. These concertinas were built using standard brick masonry with plastered concrete which acts as a self-shading device. Strengthening the relationship between the building and the street, the ground floor is a series of glass panels that makes the otherwise robust-brutal skin welcoming.

In contrast to the outside, the interior of the building is smooth and flooded with light. The interior program has public and private levels; this includes a private room on the lower-ground floor, retail shop on the upper ground floor and office spaces on the first and second floor levels.

The inside space is shaped to accentuate the geometry of the outside. With an interplay of the angulated windows, the views to the outside become distinct for each room. One can see the silent remnant of an explosion through multiple blocks pieced-out and hanged on the wall, through cracks in the false ceiling and angulated walls. Black charcoal paint and grey grained wallpaper complements the light yellow wood veneer used in false ceiling and as wall art.  There is a reference to the outer geometry in finishes of cupboards, shelves, false ceiling and placed furniture making the design as a whole. The colours are kept muted to highlight the otherness of concrete outside. Placelessness and its soft vulgarity, ‘the grey’ does not fail to captivate the imagination of it’s on goers.