If there’s a city in India that has welcomed the corporate world and the natural world seamlessly, it has to be Gurugram. What was once an agrarian society, is now the nerve of growth & prosperity of our country. Buzzing with people and life, Gurugram offers everything that the urban Indian desires within its neatly defined sectors.

As India’s leading youth hangout destination for close to a decade now, SOCIAL’s 2nd outpost in the city is a tribute to the city’s growth and unending energy: by juxtaposing the new with the old, the modern with the rustic.

Taking inspiration from Brazilian favelas , where communities exist and thrive, IFC SOCIAL builds itself as an ‘urban favela’, existing on multiple levels centred around double-height and triple-height areas. The visual connection through open spaces and brick jaalis gives the feeling of participation and also provides personal spaces, just as in a favela.

Enclosed in the glass facade of the M3M mall, Gurgaon, the distinct material palette alluding to the vernacular elements of a favela, makes it a spot hard to miss even from a distance. The material selection is careful and layered thoroughly to give an essence of inadvertent details, making the space seem as natural as possible. While the space is ideal for breezy community lunches in the afternoon, it doubles up as a high-octane bar in the evenings, where the day’s work meets the night’s play.

Tables growing around the trees, wooden trellis with bamboo shutters, and canopies covering seating areas, make this SOCIAL seem to spawn from organic growth. Brick jaalis with different patterns, as though cultivated through years of thought by different ages, and streetlamp fixtures with corrugated metal sheets, manifest an image of a small city hustling and bustling with people coming together. The architecture of the place indeed holds up the community-binding values of SOCIAL, and on a macro level, Gurugram too.