Madras Week: a factory lit up by the past

At Simpson & Co on Anna Salai, a 80,000 sq.ft shop floor is doused in dispersed and soft daylight steaming in through a time-tested north light truss roofing system

In a metropolis that is constantly reinventing itself, Madras Day is a reminder to bask in the rare preserves of the past that have stayed relevant to this day. At the famous corner plot on Anna Salai — numbers 861 & 862 — the past has survived in both form and function. A majority of the structures at Simpson & Co (which owns those numbers) hark back to the past, but none as dramatically as the one sporting a north light truss architecture.

This structure has an undulating roof with carefully planned angles . Each truss (consisting of neatly set panels of glass) stands at 90 degrees, next to a sloping roof set at a 15-degree incline. The trusses serve the purpose of daylighting, maximising the flow of natural light from the northern sky, thereby filling up the work space below (which is a whopping 80,000 sq.ft) with a softer and more consistent illumination. A mark of factory architecture, this design is aimed at taking the edge off the bright sunlight, while ensuring all of it is available to the shop floor.

Every sloping roof is shot through with metal purlins, horizontal members. The purlins are assisted by a metal lattice framework. And together, they hold up the expansive structure like Hercules did the earth.

With a crisscross pattern, the lattice framework is both a “workhorse” and a “flower vase”, weight-bearing and decorative. It disperses loads evenly across the structure while adding an element of visual elegance. The result is a space that resonates with the brilliance of past architectural wisdom.

At Simpson & Co, another past technology that finds relevance in the present, is to be found both on terra firma and above it. A carryover from Victorian times, the building’s rainwater drain system — through a network of pillar-and-roof-clambering metal conduits teamed up with underground drains — has continued unchanged, except for replacement of worn-out materials from time to time.

Another example

Yet another classic example of north light truss architecture is found quite a distance away, in Perungudi on Old Mahabalipuram Road. It is the Andrew Yule & Co factory. From the arterial road, one can see the undulating roof with the afore-discussed systems to ensure daylighting. The foreground is busy with Metro Rail barricades. And the contrast is arresting. It is a contrast between India’s first modern city, called Madras, and a metropolis, called Chennai, that soaks up the latest technologies like a sponge.