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The International Flavor & Fragrances offices in Mumbai after the Fieldturf treatment.
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Artificial grass is evolving from a product used entirely for sporting areas into a soothing and hassle-free element for interior design too.

Say artificial turf and you may immediately think of sports pitches. Hockey, soccer and even cricket games around the world are often played on this synthetic grass due to its durability and easy management.

Indeed, the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata, the world’s second biggest stadium by capacity, recently announced that it too would be covering its 90,000 sq ft soccer pitch in artificial grass. But more and more interior designers are also starting to see the value in using artificial grass for their corporate projects.

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Fieldturf, one of India’s key suppliers of this product, has a number of high profile installations to its credit. A 5,500 sq ft spread in Mukesh Ambani’s Navi Mumbai office, the 50,000 sq ft sloping rooftop of Infosys in Bhubaneshwar and other installations at Microsoft, Vodafone, Coca-Cola and Hero Honda offices are just some that can be added to the Salt Lake Stadium accolade.

Most recently, the offices for International Flavor & Fragrances (IFF) in Mumbai were given the Fieldturf treatment and while the purists may think nothing can quite match up to the real thing, there are a number of advantages to be had from the imitation stuff.

For one thing, artificial grass doesn’t need water, an important consideration for regions which may by rain-free for 80% of the year. Natural grass can use up to four gallons per sq m per day.

Artificial grass is also low maintenance, as it doesn’t require cutting or pesticides or fertilizers.

And artificial grass also keeps its colour, something natural grass, especially if badly kept or constantly in the sun, does not always achieve.

Niteen Parulekar of Niteen Parulekar Architects, and the one responsible for choosing Fieldturf artificial grass for the IFF project, says: “It’s a very good product, the best of its kind. It’s all-weather and maintenance-free. Laying it is easy, you just have to prepare a base and make provision for drain points. It comes in very handy when you are handling a project with a terrace ground or a sports ground. For the International Fragrances office, we were designing an all-hand-meet recreation space that would be a breather from the office. FieldTurf was the perfect choice for this, as green and lemon yellow (as per colour therapy) have been identified as soothing to the mind.”

With outdoor space in India not always as green, as healthy or as accessible as it could be, bringing the outside inside the office space could become a more popular trend, especially considering its therapeutic potential to the country’s office workers.

FieldTurf CEO Joe Fields says: “FieldTurf is the world leader in innovative turf products and we have always strived towards producing high quality products with long-term safety testing to ensure maximum performance.”

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