Aquaria Grande - The luxury side of "Third World" Country

Feast your eyes on a residential Complex that would put any "Luxury" to shame! James Law, an architect, or rather should we say, "The Cyber Architect" is spearheading the construction of this distinct landmark, "Aquaria Grande" in Borivalli Suburbs of Mumbai. The Twin Sky Scraper residential complex has every luxury you could ask for, a floating balcony garden, titan of a swimming pool, self cooling environment friendly vents, heck a space-pod sort of reception to welcome guests and a fully equipped Clubhouse for its privileged residents!

The roof top structure resembles a leaf sprout. The builders say that the design was inspired from the abundant woods that surround the Borivali Suburbs.

The reception is designed to be taller than most complexes and pays attention to aesthetics and ingenuity. In day time, natural sunlight is used to reflect and illuminate the hallways with an aim to optimize power consumption. The roofs are laid in such a way that natural wind cools the hallway despite the day's warmth.

The floating balcony design gives its inhabitants unobstructed view of Mumbai.

An enormous Car park to ensure that you don't have to hunt for parking spaces. If you have visited India, you would know how tough it is to find a parking space during busy hours in metros ;)

A commercial blueprint of the complex in PDF format can be downloaded from here. I must say, it looks impressive nonetheless and personally, I wouldn't mind owning a 3BHK luxury flat here myself! Pre booking for the flat are going for about 4 - 5.7Crores INR ($800,000 - $1,000,000 USD approx) each.

This is NOT the first one that's being pitched and built in India. Dear readers from the West, this kinda gives you a contradictory look of India as compared to the "Slumdog Millionaire" isn't it? ;)

But the question is, Do we really need to invest in such a luxury when more than 60% of the population reeks in hunger and poor sanitation? If I was commissioning such an unique architecture of this sort, I would have rather insisted it to be built as a public complex, say, a shopping mall wherein it would draw in tourism and generate revenue for the land as visitors globally would want to come and experience this cyber-unique architect's intended lifestyle. A private residential complex just seems too much of an unwanted luxury. Imagine the amount of power required to pump up water that high to the pools, the need for maintenance of those trees uprooted from their nativity and planted within the complex premises. A clubhouse within the complex?? I mean, what were they thinking? Only the residents on the 37 storeyed apartment get to mingle and party over and over again disconnected from the outer public? In my opinion, this residential complex however of luxury it might be, still seems to be a flawed jewel...

Dear James law, I honestly applaud this amazing creation of yours, but only if this was more of something that adds value to the land, (read monuments that attract tourism) rather than a piece of private luxury to boast off  just "Because we can"...Why is it that luxury deserves to be accessible only to those with deep pockets? Is it also because We can and They can't...?