Material Intelligence Before Material Expression

Through the Surat Diamond Bourse, Ananta Residence and ITC Campus, Kolkata, this article examines why material decisions should begin with performance and place, before they become visual expression.

Materials are often encountered first as surfaces: the colour of stone, the grain of timber, the relief of brick or the pattern of a screen. Yet the most consequential material decisions are made long before a façade acquires its final appearance. They concern where a material comes from, how far it must travel, who can work with it, how it behaves in a particular climate and whether it can be repaired with knowledge available nearby.

This is the premise of material intelligence. It asks architecture to treat materials as part of an interconnected system of resources, skills, energy, labour and time. Expression follows, but it grows from decisions that already make environmental, economic and social sense.

In India, this approach carries particular relevance. The country contains several climatic regions, long-standing building traditions and extensive networks of quarry workers, masons, fabricators and craftspeople. A meaningful approach to local materials in architecture in India therefore requires more than selecting an indigenous finish. It requires designers to understand locality as a relationship between geography, climate, production and culture.

What makes a material intelligent?

Material intelligence begins by replacing a product-led question, “What should this building look like?”, with a performance-led one: “What must this building and its materials do?” The answer is shaped by several connected considerations.

Climate

A material assembly must mediate heat, glare, humidity, rainfall and air movement. Thermal mass, porosity, surface colour, jointing, depth and maintenance all influence performance. The same stone or brick can behave differently depending on orientation, thickness and the way it is assembled.

Resource geography

Origin matters, but distance alone gives an incomplete picture. The environmental value of a nearby material can be weakened by intensive processing, high wastage or short service life. Conversely, a durable material transported from a wider regional network may remain responsible when it supports efficient extraction, skilled employment and long-term use.

Construction knowledge

Materials become architecture through people. A specification is only as resilient as the supply chains, workmanship and tolerances that support it. Local knowledge can reduce construction uncertainty, enable on-site adaptation and keep repair within reach throughout the life of a building.

Longevity and adaptability

The most economical material is rarely the one with the lowest initial price. Durability, replacement cycles, ease of repair and future adaptability must inform the calculation. Material intelligence treats life-cycle value as a design parameter rather than a post-design audit.

The global discussion around embodied carbon reinforces this wider view. The United Nations Environment Programme calls for avoiding unnecessary extraction, shifting to responsibly sourced regenerative materials and improving conventional materials. For architects, this translates into careful decisions about how much is built, what it is built from and how long it can remain useful.

Locality is a system, not a radius

The phrase “local material” is sometimes reduced to a prescribed distance between quarry and site. Proximity is valuable because it can lower transport demand and strengthen regional economies, but locality also resides in knowledge. It includes the workers who understand a material, the tools used to shape it, the construction practices that accommodate its tolerances and the cultural meanings it carries.

This distinction is important when considering local materials in architecture in India. A regional stone can support a distributed chain of extraction, dressing and installation. Brick can connect an industrially standardised unit with an inherited masonry skill. A contemporary façade can translate script, textile or craft patterns without turning a building into a literal reproduction of the past.

The objective is neither nostalgia nor novelty. It is continuity with transformation. A material gains contemporary relevance when its known properties and existing knowledge base are directed towards present-day demands such as thermal comfort, density, workplace performance and resource efficiency.

Surat Diamond Bourse: material intelligence at an urban scale

At the Surat Diamond Bourse, material decisions operate at the scale of a 7.1-million-square-foot workplace for more than 67,000 professionals. With nine 15-storey office wings, over 4,700 offices and extensive shared spaces, repetition could magnify both efficiency and waste. The project therefore establishes performance through planning before relying on systems or finishes.

The office wings are oriented on the north-south axis and use narrow floor plates, enabling diffused daylight to reach more than 75 per cent of workspaces. The wings shade landscaped courtyards, while a central circulation spine funnels prevailing winds. Perforated east-west walls draw on the environmental logic of the Gujarati jaali, supporting cross-ventilation without glass infill. Staggered atria release accumulated warm air and introduce planted “green lungs” into the spine.

This passive framework reduces the work demanded of mechanical systems. Thirty per cent of the built-up area, including the community and circulation spaces, is passively conditioned. Radiant cooling addresses enclosed areas, while the building’s reported energy performance of approximately 45 kWh per square metre per year is substantially below the 110 kWh per square metre per year benchmark cited for the Energy Conservation Building Code.

Regional stone as a supply-chain decision

The project uses Lakha red granite and Gwalior white sandstone procured within a 300-kilometre radius. At this scale, the choice is significant not simply because the stone appears regional. It connects the building to established quarrying and working traditions while limiting long-distance material movement.

Stone-working communities were involved across quarrying, dressing and application. Local manufacturing units were also established to support construction. Material selection thus became a form of capacity building, distributing economic value across the making of the building rather than concentrating it in the finished object.

The contrast between red granite and white sandstone gives the bourse a strong civic presence, but that expression is the visible result of a prior intelligence. Durability, availability, workforce knowledge, climatic mass and repeatable construction were considered together. The material palette serves the building’s scale because its supply and execution were designed as carefully as its appearance.

Roshni Residence: brick as craft, structure and climate response

Roshni Residence in Chattarpur, New Delhi, approaches material intelligence at a more intimate scale. Set on a densely wooded 3.68-acre site, the house was organised in response to mature trees, including three significant champa trees, and a landform conceived with Jencks Squared. Curving surfaces rise into sweeping rooflines so that building and terrain are experienced as a continuous composition.

The geometry combines the infinity symbol with the spatial logic of a courtyard house. In Delhi’s composite climate, the massing follows the movement of the sun and uses courtyards, verandahs, terraces and earth berming to temper exposure. Summer sitting areas benefit from the shade of the building, while winter areas are positioned to receive sun. Brick jaalis provide shade and privacy, and water bodies contribute evaporative cooling around the courtyard.

Relearning what brick can do

Brick was selected as more than a cladding material. Its modest dimensions, earthen character and capacity for corbelling allowed the masonry to negotiate the residence’s complex curves. The project reimagines traditional bricklaying through contemporary modelling, prototyping and close collaboration with craftspeople.

Approximately 100,000 bricks were modelled digitally to test the feasibility of the pattern language before construction. Full-scale mock-ups and on-site samples were then used to refine bonds, relief patterns, corbelled edges and three-dimensional assemblies. Digital precision and manual knowledge worked as complementary tools, each resolving questions the other could not answer alone.

This process extended beyond the façade. Bespoke terrazzo and timber floors were developed through twelve patterns inspired by Indian craft traditions. Metal railings, conceived as individual blades of grass, reinforce the connection between architecture and landscape. Standard components were replaced where custom fabrication could create greater continuity between material, detail and place.

The result demonstrates that craft need not be applied ornament. It can function as research and development. Mock-ups reveal tolerances, labour sequences and structural limits; craftspeople contribute practical intelligence; and repetition turns experimentation into a buildable system. The expressive richness of the residence grows directly from this process.

ITC Campus, Kolkata: translating regional culture across a mixed-use development

The ITC Campus at Rajarhat, Kolkata, has a mixed-use brief comprising IT and corporate offices, a hotel, convention centre and residential towers across a 17-acre site. Here, material intelligence includes a cultural question: how can a large contemporary development establish a relationship with Bengal without reducing regional identity to decoration?

The master plan begins with climate. Buildings are arranged along a central spine aligned with prevailing winds. East-west courts cross this spine, making the site permeable and channelling air movement in Kolkata’s warm-humid conditions. Partially sheltered public spaces take inspiration from the pandal, the temporary pavilion that accommodates gathering, ritual and collective life.

Craft as an architectural language

The taller buildings use soaring stone façades as vertical canvases for work influenced by the Bengal School. At the lower convention centre, Bengali script becomes a façade-generating device that brings pattern and human scale to the development. Across the campus, the intent is to involve artists and craftspeople from Bengal in shaping the public realm.

This approach moves beyond the direct replication of a historical motif. Bengal’s terracotta traditions, woodwork, patachitra, Kantha stitching and bamboo craft inform patterns, colours, acoustic elements and material choices at different scales. In the interiors, the palette includes recyclable materials such as wood wool, felt, rice paper, glass, metal, aluminium frames and cork boards, linking cultural interpretation with measurable material goals.

The campus illustrates an expanded definition of the local. Its identity comes from the alignment of climatic planning, public life, artistic participation and material translation. Stone, script, pattern and craft operate within one system, allowing cultural expression to emerge through the architecture rather than being placed upon it.

From specification to stewardship

These three projects differ greatly in size and programme, yet they point towards a common method. Material decisions become more robust when architects consider five questions early:

1. What climatic work can planning and material assemblies perform before mechanical systems are introduced?
2. Which regional supply chains can reliably support the required volume, quality and construction programme?
3. What knowledge do craftspeople, fabricators and contractors bring to the design process?
4. How can mock-ups and prototypes turn material uncertainty into tested construction intelligence?
5. Will the chosen materials remain durable, repairable and meaningful as the building ages?

This method also changes the architect’s role. Specifying a material is only one step. Stewardship requires understanding extraction, processing, labour, assembly, maintenance and eventual reuse. It asks design teams to engage with the full chain of consequences created by a material choice.

Material expression retains an important place in architecture. Buildings communicate through colour, texture, weight, pattern and touch. But expression becomes more credible when it reveals how a building belongs to its climate and culture, how it was made and whose knowledge enabled it.

For local materials in architecture in India, this is the larger opportunity. India’s material diversity can support an architecture that is environmentally responsive, economically distributed and culturally specific. The strongest results will come from treating local materials as sources of intelligence first. Their expression can then emerge with clarity, purpose and a genuine sense of place.