Produced by: Hitansh Gaur
Surat may be a less-known hub of the gem industry worldwide but the city is responsible for cutting of 90% of the world’s diamonds. Surat has now brought a unique laurel to India with the Surat Diamond Bourse.
The diamond city of India is now home to the World’s Largest Office Building - the ‘Surat Diamond Bourse’. The building is aiming to be the one-stop destination for the entire diamond industry.
This mammoth 15-storey complex is spread over more than 35 acres of land. The building provides a floor area of 7.1 million square feet, making it the largest office in the world.
The new building for the diamond industry connects nine rectangular buildings with the help of a ‘central spine’. The office is designed in a way that no individual office will be more than seven minutes away from any of the gates. The building also got a platinum rating from Indian Green Building Council as the architects claim that it consumes 50% less energy than the maximum limit.
The newly built modern marvel will be the new home for 65,000 diamond professionals including traders, cutters and polishers. The first occupants of the building are expected to move into it in November after PM Narendra Modi inaugurates the office.
Architects of the building Morphogenesis revealed to CNN that the building was completed after four years of work which also includes the two year delay caused by COVID-19. The cost of this project is around Rs 3,200 crore.
The new Surat Diamond Bourse has 4,700 office spaces connected by marble floors and light-filled atriums. The number of offices can be doubled when it comes to small offices for cutting and polishing.
The 15-story complex has 131 elevators, dining areas, retail, conference and wellness facilities for the workers. For relaxation and casual talks, there are nine courtyards of 1.5-acres each with seating and water facilities.
For the past 80 years, the Pentagon held the record for being the largest office building. Pentagon is the headquarters of US Defence Forces with a floor area of 6.5 million square feet.
The architects also said that the building might serve as the “anchor tenant” if the plans to build the Dream City come to fruition. The Dream City is a proposed ‘smart city’ over 700 hectares (1,730 acres) of land in the southern part of Surat. The plan has been publicly lauded by PM Modi.