NBA opens swanky new office in Mumbai's Corporate Hub
The NBA, after being in the country since 2011 now is the world’s largest basketball league. They recently set up an interactive office space in the heart of India’s Mumbai city, at the corporate hub of Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC). The new headquarters is a complete mix of work and play enhancing the brand’s ethos which is bold and high spirited.
Realty+ explores the inspiration behind their new BKC Office.
The NBA has grown rapidly in India over the past 7-8 years. Just last season we saw a live game TV viewership of over 80M viewers, grew our social fanbase in India to over 22M, and took our Jr. NBA grassroots development program to over 7,800 schools in 34 cities across India, directly imparting basketball training to over 6.5M kids.
As the NBA drives its rapid growth in India, so was the need for our team in India to grow & evolve to deliver & sustain this growth. And to house this growing diverse team, we needed a new bigger and more modern space. We lovingly call this our homecourt, the new home of the NBA in India.
When we set about working on the design for our new office, it was a collaboration between 3 teams – the design team from our architects M Moser, the facilities team from the NBA headquarters in New York City, and a 4 core member team from the NBA India office. shares Siddharth Chury – Associate Vice President, Global Partnerships, NBA India.
“Basketball is a fast-paced and energetic sport that requires speed; every move has a carefully calculated function and every strategy is geared towards one goal. For inspiration, we didn’t have to look any further than the game itself. In order to translate the concept of speed into the workspace, we came up with a fluid design solution. Design fluidity in the NBA office was achieved through space planning, the usage of transparent materials as well as fluid forms and shapes. This concept allowed us to create a seamless transition between the experience center and the office space.”
By combining the high-spiritedness of the game of basketball with all the amenities of a futuristic and connected workspace, we were able to create a unique journey for employees and visitors alike” shares Neha Sethi – Senior Designer, M Moser Associates.
“Our main challenge was to accommodate the local design needs while respecting the NBA’s global workspace standards. For example, in India, employees feel the need for more privacy and more storage space. We provided unique workstations and used the storages to divide the space into a semi-private work zone.” adds Kiran Vetal – Senior Designer, M Moser Associates.
Our PR wall showcases selected press coverage we’ve received around the NBA in India over the past year or so.
A couple of my personal favourites zone are the merchandise wall [where we display a wide variety of NBA merchandise available for fans to flaunt their fandom] and the history wall [which chronicles key moments in NBA history across 8 decades, including interactive screens allowing you to relive moments of your choice].
And even with all of these elements around, what I’ve seen visitors spend most of time with is the pop-a-shot machine. Whether you’re a good basketball player or not, everyone loves to shoot the ball into the hoop, and this station offers a fun interactive experience while doing so. In fact, we often encourage our visitors to take a try at beating the top score of the day!
We’ve also paid a lot of attention to detail; even something as seemingly trivial as the colour of the wooden flooring was carefully selected to match the actual floor of NBA courts; or for that matter the court markings on the office floor are exactly the dimensions as the actual NBA court, giving the sense of size & grandeur of the NBA arena. Even meeting rooms in the office are named & themed on milestones in an NBA season, that too chronologically. We start with the Tip Off, move on to All-Star, then Playoffs followed by Finals, and the main conference room is called the Champions.
The office still has a few elements yet to be installed. In the works is a memorabilia wall, with signed items from key NBA players & legends, or items from important moments from NBA’s history; in a way, we’re trying to create a mini-museum of sorts, which will be like the mecca for all hardcore NBA fans. Also, on the way is a ceiling suspend sculpture of an athlete flying through the air to dunk the basketball; again expected to be a jaw-dropping photo op spot for all visitors.
So, as the NBA continues to grow in India, our office will continue to evolve and keep our team and visitors alike engaged & entertained.
Tags : Interviews New York NBA Siddharth Chury BKC Office NBA headquarters Neha Sethi M Moser Associates Kiran Vetal Champions