Project submitted to the 2006 Skyscraper Competition
Suzi Winstanley

Silk Street is a proposal for a digital textiles supercenter in Chennai, India. A skyscraper, woven in limecrete and bamboo, crosses and combines traditional textile weavers with high-tech industries to instigate an Indian urban manifesto.

The shape of the building is sculpted and entwined. Its structure reflects the nature of the materials that form it and inspire it. Threads of limecrete are cast in plastic gas pipes that peel away once the limecrete is set. The skin of the building is a double skin fabric, evoking the simplicity of bamboo and cloth scaffolding. The building is very colorful reflecting the exhuberance of color in India.