Surat Diamond Bourse breaks Pentagon’s 80-year long record for world’s largest office building

India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, is scheduled to inaugurate Surat Diamond Bourse, the world’s new largest office building, on the 21^st of November.

As the name suggests, the building is located in Surat, India, where roughly 90% of the world’s diamonds are cut and polished.

The project’s architects have stated that the building features more than 7.1 million square feet of floor space, while rising 15 stories high on more than 35 acres of land.

The structure features nine towers and nine 1.5-acre courtyards, designed for face-to-face transactions to take place in a “traditional bazar” like space.

Surat Diamond Bourse will house more than 4,200 offices, ranging from 300 to 7,500 ft², and all of which had been sold to diamond companies prior to construction.

As for the project’s budget, it came to 32 billion rupees, or $388 million, and construction lasted four years.

The project’s architects said that they planned for a design where no office is longer than seven minutes away from the nearest gate, while the design is also claimed to consume as much as 50% less energy than what is required to obtain a platinum rating, according to Indian standards.

The building’s design was based on an environmental and sustainable basis according to one of the project’s architects. More specifically, solar energy is used for the needs of common spaces, while a central structure redirects prevailing winds through the building for ventilation, and finally, an underfloor water-cooling system was also used.