The Saint Gobain glass factory, spread over 250 acres, was built in the 1980’s, and is typical of its time with little thought being given to a landscape plan. Fortunately the company’s MD, Mr. Santhanam is a keen lover of nature, so we were commissioned to make the compound greener in 2002. The biggest challenge was to cut down on the water requirements for the plant. As Chennai has two seasonal monsoons, it is imperative that water is harvested. Mr. Gopinath, an expert on water harvesting, worked out the slopes and the system for tapping all the roof water. We designed a large tank over 8 acres, to capture 77,000 kilo litres of water. The tank is designed as a village stepped tank, with five water jets for aeration. To reflect on the nature of the business it was decided to incorporate glass into the landscape as sculpture, garden structures and water walls. The planting is used in mass scale to capture the volume of spaces. The overall effect is to give relaxation and tranquility to the factory workers