Hundredhands

Company Name

Hundredhands

The roots
For Bijoy Ramachandran, who runs Bengaluru-based firm Hundredhands along with partner Sunitha Kondur, his choice of profession was a happenstance. He enrolled for architecture on the advice of his school warden Bro. George Kalangod, who in all his wisdom saw potential in his talents in drawing, physics and performance. Before that, his grandfather came with him for multiple entrance exams – all of which he flunked. Finally, he managed to secure a seat at BMS College of Engineering. It wasn’t till his third year, working on NASA, that he began comprehending what he had gotten into.

The nurturing
The grounding in architecture for both Ramachandran and Kondur took place at BMS. “In spite of the fact that there wasn’t this kind of inspired instruction, it was nevertheless a place of incredible energy,” recalls Ramachandran. “Most of this energy was focused on the NASA trophies… competing was really the testbed for a lot of us.” Then teachers like Anil Dube taught him “to draw, to carefully consider what exists, to evocatively represent ideas, and to listen”. At MIT (Cambridge, MA), where he did his Master’s, he was introduced to some more incredible teachers: Julian Beinart (City Form), Michael Dennis (Urban Design), Dennis Adams (Public Art) and other colleagues.

The fruits
Hundredhands came into existence in 2003, when a friend commissioned them with a small project – graphic wall for a software office. When an old client from the USA asked them to design an orphanage in Trichy, they soon “set up shop in a bedroom at home, hired three young architects and were off.”
About a decade and a half has seen them work across scales – from product and furniture design to master planning, also movies (they produced a film on BV Doshi), branding and graphic design. Kondur also runs Source, a product sourcing company focused on furniture and accessories.

The turning points
Alila and Nua (both in Bengaluru) are important projects for them, for they allowed the architect duo an opportunity to test many ideas. Their early work for Hope Foundation – mostly community buildings in the tsunami-hit areas of Tamil Nadu – has also been very instructive. “We were forced to consider what was truly indispensable for us, settling often for a careful articulation of structure and choice of materials to establish the aesthetic of these buildings. In hindsight, these early projects informed our practice in fundamental ways,” they state.

The destination
For the founders of Hundredhands, the path yet to be traversed is full of hope: making more buildings, more movies, and being more engaged with the world. “I often remember Kahn’s comment about ‘spaces full of wonder. Spaces that rise and envelope flowingly without beginning, without end, of a jointless material white and gold’… Every project begins with this dream, and it is always less. I guess this is the great challenge (and joy) of being an architect,” observes Ramachandran.