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Khushboo Mankani Architecture

Projects / Commercial

Auto Emporium: a car mall

A multi-brand car mall on the Eastern Express Highway, where the showroom, the service bay and the test track share one curved building.

  • Academic
  • c. 2024
Exterior render of the car mall, a curved glazed building with ribbed bronze cladding, seen from the service road with cars parked in front
View 01The curved façade from the service road

00Project data

KMA / AEM·24

Project
Auto Emporium: a car mall (Commercial)
Location
Thane, Maharashtra
Context
Academic design studio, semester 9
Institution
Sir J.J. College of Architecture, Mumbai
Year
c. 2024
Authorship
Individual project
Tools
AutoCAD, Rhino, Grasshopper, Lumion, Adobe Photoshop

01Brief

KMA / AEM·24

Buying a car means visiting six showrooms in six directions. Auto Emporium puts them on one site without making it a shed.

Auto Emporium brings the showrooms of six brands, their service centres and the amenities around them onto one site in Thane, beside the Eastern Express Highway.

Each showroom is a 3,000 sq.m. bay, the largest a single brand needs. A service core every 30 metres carries the car lifts and fire stairs, so cars reach every floor without crossing the public route. The building curves so that each bay has its own frontage to the highway, and the test track and workshop sit behind it, out of the customer's way.

02Site analysis

KMA / AEM·24

The plot sits beside the Eastern Express Highway with a service road along its edge and roads on three sides: good connectivity, and a southeast wind worth planning for.

Site diagram showing the main highway and internal roads around the plot
Land use diagram showing residential and commercial zones around the site
Diagram of the sun path and prevailing wind direction across the site
Diagram marking nearby restaurants, a school and residential areas

A service road off the highway, with roads on three sides giving good connectivity

03Design development

KMA / AEM·24

Six moves from a row of boxes to a curved building.

Isometric diagram of rectangular showroom boxes laid along the site
Isometric diagram showing a central circulation spine between showroom blocks
Isometric diagram with service cores inserted along the building
Isometric diagram of the stacked six-storey massing
Isometric diagram showing floors stepped back to form terraces
Isometric diagram of the final curved building form

04Massing

KMA / AEM·24

Buyers, dealers, service staff and delivery each need their own route, so the workshop, test track and handover sit behind the showrooms and the driveways thread between the floors.

  • Site isometric showing the curved mall, workshop, test-drive track, fuel station and car handover area
    Drawing 01Site isometric: workshop, test track and handover kept clear of the public route
  • Exploded axonometric separating the recreational floor, typical showroom floors and the driveways that wind between them
    Drawing 02Exploded view: driveways thread through the showroom floors

05Drawings

KMA / AEM·24

Master plan of the campus with the mall, workshop, parking and landscape
Drawing 03Master plan: the mall, its workshop and the test-drive track

06Views

KMA / AEM·24

  • Render of a car on a turntable under a ribbed timber ceiling in the showroom
    View 03Showroom: one car, one room, a ribbed timber ceiling
  • Render of the drop-off under the curved canopy with cars arriving
    View 04Drop-off: the canopy carries the curve to the ground
  • Render of a timber pergola amenity structure on the landscaped grounds
    View 06The grounds: a pergola for the people waiting
  • Render of the curved glass showroom from the road, cars visible on every floor behind the glazing
    View 05From the road: cars on every floor