Yesterday morning it rained heavily and stopped. I was walking at the P3 parking level after the rains and noticed large clouds were slowly moving from east to west near the Parsik Hills. The fluffy white clouds at a low height were partially enveloping the low hills giving the whole scene a surreal look and feel.
Welcome to Urbania in monsoon, when rain clouds add a different dimension to life at high rise buildings. And more so if you live on the topmost floor at Urbania.
This issue of our newsletter explores the life at tall buildings at Mumbai and Urbania.
High rises have been standard for long at Mumbai for the reason that the city has limited space and residential real estate expanded vertically. Mumbai has some of the tallest residential buildings in India and several that are more than five hundred feet high.
Residents who live in Mumbai’s tallest buildings report high wind and having to guard against objects being thrown about if in the open, like at balconies. Even inside rooms, if doors or windows or open, wind can displace things and toss them around. So, life at heights has its pluses and minuses when an apartment is at an elevation of more than 500 ft.
Builders charge a premium for apartments on the higher floors using a floor rise that keeps increasing as you choose one closer to the highest. The need to use thicker glass and specialised material against wind pressure at height is a reason for the higher cost of homes in tall buildings.
Panoramic views of the city unobstructed by other buildings are one perk of living in a high rise. From heights of 500 ft. all objects look toy-like be they moving trains, vehicles, humans or even other dwellings. The air is relatively less polluted at skyscrapers and temperature slightly lesser too than at lower heights. Being enveloped in clouds and losing track of space and time is an eerie feeling that you can get staying in a very tall building.
Right now, the tallest buildings at Urbania have forty-one stories in them with the four floors for parking and the club level adding to the thirty-six that have apartments on them. Urbania’s residents at Azziano on the thirty-sixth or topmost floor are at more than a hundred metres from the ground but at a height lesser than at the top of the above five hundred tall buildings of Mumbai.
I guess the more than hundred-fifty-foot gap between Mumbai’s tallest and Urbania’s tallest residential buildings leads to differences in the experience at both. I have visited our friends Kenkres who live on the thirty-third floors at Azziano G wing and the view from their apartment balcony is enchanting both in the day and at night. The north-facing apartments at Azziano Phase II have a great look of mangroves and the Mumbai Nashik highway.
On 33rd floor of Azziano, I was surprised how sound transmits from the ground nearly a hundred metres above as I have heard the horns of vehicles on the highway below. The lights of cars moving at night make it an exciting sight at night with the cars seeming to move slowly than reality.
Monsoon is a great time to view things from Urbania’s buildings. From the apartments, at the thirtieth and higher floors, you can view the slow movement of clouds and even lighting and rain. On the most upper six levels, you can also see the clouds outside your balcony and lose visibility of the horizon.
I sought help from residents to add details from those living at the highest floors at Urbania. Deepa Gopalakrishnan who lives on the 27th floor at Azziano Phase I (in which the most top storey is 29th floor) and Mallika Mondal who lives on the 36th floor at Azziano Phase II shared their experience for this issue of Life at Urbania. Both Deepa and Mallika are avid gardeners and part of our Urbania Gardening group. Here are some things I could discern from their feedback about living at heights at our township.
Views: This probably is one reason most residents choose the topmost floor as there is an unrestricted view of sunrise and sunset and also the moon. Chances sightings of rainbows are a bonus.
Silence: Apartments at Urbania are reasonably quiet depending on the orientation of your home, but at hundred metres above ground you have the pleasure of stillness that is missing at the lower levels. The peace and quietude at the top are also a favourite reason for people to choose their apartment.
Cloud-whispering: Clouds moving outside your balcony or window is as surreal as it can get at high-rise home. Mallika shared that sometimes she can see rains below but not outside as the cloud is in between her apartment and the ground.
Gardening: At Urbania, the wind speeds at the highest floors seem amenable for gardening. Many of the Urbania Gardening members are residents of the topmost levels at their buildings and are managing their plants efficiently.
Challenges: Apartments at highest floor get heated more than the rest in summer as the roof of the building is right above it. Water pressure is low as the water tank is directly above!
Deepa feels on “top of the world” at her balcony and uses it to relax when she returns home from work. Her home is among few at Urbania with open terraces all along the length of her apartment. Mallika thinks “it’s great to be able to converse with the wind” and loves the noise made by the breeze at her home.
Monsoon is a great time to live in high-rise buildings like those at Urbania. Noisy wind on some days can make even opening the door at your home difficult. The wind seems to howl through gaps you leave around windows and doors. The dark skies and pouring rain may make your sombre but only till the air clears up, and the sun shines through again. On other days you may see white, fluffy clouds move silently and slowly at a distance or outside your window. Watching the clouds is a very therapeutic experience in which you can lose a sense of space and time.
Welcome to the monsoon of 2020, which is now just a week away. Enjoy the rains.
