According to Mumbai architect Sanjay Puri, construction will soon begin on this cool Hare Krishna temple in Ahmedabad, a western Indian city where summer temperatures regularly exceed 40 degrees Celsius. The temple, which will hold 5,000 worshipers when complete, will feature a monumental shikhara – a customary rounded conical roof – with its apex located above the site’s main deity. But in a break with tradition, Puri plans to mass progressively larger two-dimensional slices of the shikhara’s silhouette into a 46-metre mega-structure, with lattice-filled spaces between the planes to filter light into the interior and help with natural airflow.

Project: Iskcon Temple

Location: Ahmedabad, India

Firm: Sanjay Puri Architects, India

Team: Sanjay Puri with Deep Dodiya and Nimish Shah