Floating Office Architecture in India: Hover Space by Thirdspace Architecture Studio

A Contextual Office Expansion Above Heritage

In the heart of Belagavi, India, Thirdspace Architecture Studio has redefined adaptive reuse with Hover Space, a striking example of floating office architecture. This architectural extension to the KLE Society’s 50-year-old head office is both respectful of heritage and expressive of contemporary structural clarity. Hover Space introduces a new office block that literally levitates above the original building—an engineering and spatial maneuver that enables expansion without disruption.

Preserving Heritage Through Light Touch Interventions

Sited on a century-old educational campus, the original two-storey building—although architecturally modest—holds deep institutional significance. The architects embraced this legacy, avoiding demolition or heavy-handed interventions. Instead, the team responded to three contextual layers: a busy urban road, the historic campus, and a sports ground. The result is a design that is simultaneously minimal, precise, and context-aware.

Structure That Floats: Design and Technical Clarity

Hover Space is supported by just eight cylindrical RCC columns, carefully positioned to avoid interfering with ongoing ground-level activities. The floating floorplate, a 1,000 sqm open-plan office, is framed by two dramatic red steel trusses spanning the entire structure. This strategy not only creates spatial efficiency but also achieves a feeling of levitation—an architectural gesture of respect for what lies beneath.

The L-shaped configuration is defined by a bold triple-height entry portal. Aligned with a central avenue and framed by trees, this sculptural threshold guides visitors from the city into the academic realm, signaling a shift from urban noise to institutional calm.

Climatic Responsiveness and Colonial Inspiration

Inspired by colonial verandahs, a continuous perimeter balcony wraps around the office volume. This serves multiple roles—as a shaded buffer against Belagavi’s intense sun and monsoon rains, as well as a social extension of the office interior. Operable aluminium fins and expanded mesh façades ensure controlled daylight, ventilation, and privacy, while allowing the building to breathe.

Sliding glass doors dissolve the boundary between interior and exterior, encouraging seamless interaction with the surroundings. The floating office thus becomes both shelter and observatory—a workspace elevated yet grounded in its landscape.

Internal Zoning for Dynamic Workflows

The internal organization of the floating volume is functionally tripartite. At the front sits a dignified entry lobby with the chairman’s chambers. The central portion houses private offices and meeting rooms, while the rear opens up into a series of workstations overlooking the city and the sports grounds beyond. This zoning allows for hierarchy, collaboration, and openness—an ideal layout for a modern administrative hub.

Clerestory skylights illuminate the central spine, while exposed red steel trusses lend architectural honesty to the space. The interiors use a restrained material palette, accented by indoor greenery and vibrant color bursts that bring vitality without excess.

Connecting the Old and New

A transparent glass elevator shaft bridges the old and new volumes while offering panoramic views over the athletic field. Meanwhile, a circular staircase spirals upward from the terrace of the original building, now reimagined as a semi-open interstitial space that blends history with new function. These transitional elements foster a continuous architectural dialogue between legacy and future.

A New Civic Face for an Institutional Landmark

From the city side, Hover Space reads as a calm, screened monolith—neither shouting its presence nor retreating into anonymity. It becomes a silent marker of institutional identity, a renewed presence for KLE Society that honors the memory of the past while projecting a vision of resilience, innovation, and thoughtful architectural intervention.

Hover Space exemplifies how floating office architecture can transcend structural novelty to become an agent of spatial negotiation, urban clarity, and sustainable design thinking. In doing so, it offers a new chapter in Indian architectural innovation.

All Photographs are works of Andre J Fanthome, Suryan and Dang