animal care centre, mumbai

Designed as the first facility of its scale in India, this comprehensive animal care centre represents a bold and compassionate step forward in urban veterinary infrastructure. Uniquely programmed to offer specialized healthcare services for large and small animals, birds, reptiles, and exotic species, the centre responds to an urgent urban need with precision, empathy, and innovation.

Occupying a compact urban plot within a residential zone, the building’s massing aligns with the site’s boundary to optimize land use. To respect the tranquility of its residential surroundings, the structure was deliberately designed to look inward, avoiding large exterior openings. Instead, a central atrium topped with a skylight floods the interiors with natural light while enabling passive ventilation. The atrium acts as a thermal spine, with volumes and apertures oriented to channel prevailing winds and daylight deep into the building.

The structure steps inward along its eastern flank, creating upper-level terraces that overlook the western atrium, balancing privacy with openness. Functionally, the multi-storey facility is divided into three distinct zones: public, operational, and administrative, each supported by dedicated service cores. Given the building’s diverse inhabitants—from strays to exotics—a rigorous animal-wise segregation strategy was critical. Circulation, zoning, and material selection were carefully planned to minimize noise, odor, and air exchange between different species’ wards, ensuring both hygiene and animal welfare.

With high demands on ventilation and energy, the building embraces sustainability through solar panels integrated into the skylight roof, which not only generate power but also aid stack ventilation in the atrium, reinforcing the building’s green credentials.

Architecturally, the centre aspires to make a measured yet assertive urban statement. A cohesive form defined by exposed concrete shear walls ensures column-free interiors for maximum adaptability. These shear walls offer a brutalist clarity while serving as a protective shell around the varied internal activities. To temper the severity of the concrete and connect emotionally with its mission, the envelope is stained in a gradient of earth to sky tones—from brown at the base to blue at the top—creating a visual metaphor for care, elevation, and transition.

This large mass is further animated by a custom-designed mural screen that wraps around the external ramp. The mural, themed on animal life, serves a dual purpose: it softens the building’s scale and simultaneously announces its function, becoming a warm civic gesture to passersby.

In sum, the Urban Animal Care Centre is both a functional typology redefined and a civic landmark in the making—thoughtfully responsive to its environment, deeply humane in its purpose, and bold in its architectural clarity.