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IDEALISATION OF THE IDEAL

An advertisement, an open competition, the jury and a winnerthe firm of Sen Kapadia Architect vouches that an ideal design process does not end there, it constantly evolves till the blueprint meets the site. A walk through the firm's collaborative proposal with the engineering firm of Suresh Banker for the campus extension of the National Institute of Design, Gandhinagar.
Text Images : Ajay Nayak : courtesy the architect

3 1.NIDs identity manifests itself as a simplistic entrance portal. 2.Meandering walkways impregnated by chowks and fountains, which allow chance meetings and informal dialogues. 3. A pergola supports the walkways in creating a fluid connectivity of the building fragments. 4. The building volumes play with landscaping to create interconnected volumes around meandering walkways.

he debate on what is good aesthetics, is a timeless one and will probably remain so as the creative eye constantly switches from retro to evolutionary, from maximalist to minimalist and so on. To readdress an oft repeated quote beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, one reflects on the ideal sensibilities to be applied when creating a house for studying design which becomes a confluence of multiple, individualistic mindsets and talents. The response to the advertisement, profiling an open competition for NID's campus extension at Gandhinagar carried the potential for the creation of iconic architecture that could influence, instruct and involve the generations of designers to come. Iconic can also stand for sensitivity to location, culture and the environment the elements that seem to be the psychological grid on which NID's winning entry by Kapadia + Banker, an architect + engineer team, seems to be

drawn on. Sen Kapadia's institutional endeavours like the Computer Science Centre at IIT Powai, Mumbai, cast a premeditated impression to our expectations where a stylised built mass with clean yet strong lines played with the terrain for an effect - a showcase of subtle volumes broken by structural interfaces like steel girders and 'scissor'ed staircases. In the NID extension, Sen seems to have taken a step back to examine his priorities as a seasoned academician and then the designer. Says Sen,The NID culture, so to say, gave a comfortable feeling to me and was one of the important things that stimulated the design approach as I felt we knew the core or the heart of the design. Suppose if I have to design a memorial for somebody and if I don't respect that person, the memorial is not going to come to me and so on so forth. With the directional factor established, the architects have occasioned upon the

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D AR ROA HI NAG - GAND ABAD AHMED

MASTER PLAN

1. Community plaza 5. Jwelrey design 8. Library 12. Diploma presentation gallery 15. Faculty residences 19. Student centre

2. Woods 3. Gardens 6. Knowledge management centre 9. Academic block 10. Design shop 13. Auditorium 14. Ceremonial dinner plaza 16. Students hotel 17. Kitchen 20. Convocation plaza 21. Playground

4. Automobile centre 7. Administration 11. Design gallery 18. Dinning hall 22. Parking

opportunity to generate new aesthetical massing which result in newer internal spaces and external forms. As said by them, We seized this opportunity to try and evolve a new prototype campus. Both Kapadia and Banker, in their earlier careers, were associated with NID for Louis Kahn's IIM project. With the NID extension they found themselves on a common home groundwith location and client. They also had the benefit of having studied the scale, proportions and idealisations of institutional buildings with an esteemed Master. Seeing architecture and engineering as inseparable components of any project, the collaboration worked upon logical and natural sequences as diametrically opposite attitudes leading to corresponding static and dynamic systems.This seems to be the key, as the campus seems to evolve along an organic river flow; the river being the main access road, and its tributaries - the

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Indian Architect & Builder April 2006

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1.play ground 4. Ground covers 8 . Ceremonial dinner plaza

2.Community plaza 3 & 6. Wood 5. Gardens 7. Convocation plaza 9,10,11,12 & 13. Hanging garden 14. Mist fountain

LANDSCAPING PLAN

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1. Glass 2. Temporary textile studio 3,5,6,25,26. Faculty 4. Knowledge management centre 7,8,15,16,20,30. Class room 9. Jewelry studio 1 10. Jewelry studio 2 11. Administration 12. Board room 13. P.A. 14. Director

17. Studio 18. Workshop 19. Product design workshop 21,29. Graphics workshop 22. Graphic studio 23. Chowk presentation & exhibition 24. Product design studio 27. Wash 28. KLAN 31. Ceramic Studio 32. Library 33. Temporary display area

ACADEMIC BLOCK LAYOUT

Jewelry Adminitration block Automotive

involving pedestrian routes. Sen perceives architecture here as a series of events along a route, rather than buildings fronting a road and predictable rooms lined up along a corridor. As a result, the outer street will have a series of landscaped and variable built forms, where as an inner street will be north-lit route with chowks, fountains and open exhibition spaces topped with a shading device. The internal street provides connectivity to various academic disciplines and is interspersed with foyers and courtyards for spontaneous informal congregations, which are suffused with landmark signage and display potentials. Says Sen, We have deployed the space sequence to allow the campus to grow without any obligation to provide a 'complete' composition. It is essential in this project to provide functional but experiential architecture as opposed to creating just a visual iconic landmark. In the plan, this sequence is not limited to

GRID PLAN

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Low window ro minize glare & heat & to restrict direct sunlight Gardens with north facing openings to minimize glare and heat gain North facing aperture allows reflected light but restrict hot sunlight Ventilated cavity roof to eleminate heat gain White china mosaic roof Deep chajja to project from heat & glare Earth cover to eleminate heat gain Projected skylight with adjustable louvers to provide glow of light Ground cover to minimize maintenance, kept wet in summer with water sprinklers Trees to shade main walkway

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Design gallery as part of landscape brick paved shaded street Rain water harvesting tank water usable for flushing and landscaping

CROSS SECTION

the external but binds with the internal spatial organization facilitating an amorphous form. Says the architect, The semblance was that things happen as you keep going and each one individually is not great but the total experience is great, creating an intense feeling of release. As a result, when built, the student or visitor to NID will experience a meandering street analogy drawn in the likes of traditional shaded and interactive streets of Ahmedabad. In doing so, the building aims for monumentality through enduring spatial values rather than exaggerated scale. While expressing openness, the proposal allows for phased development and the building manifests as a non-monolithic form with specific scale and character assigned to the different academic, residential and public spaces to create a vibrant campus plan. Sen recollects the initiation of the project when he received the competition program, I scrutinised the sent program and you see the mind is a computer that assimilates

these facts into emotional, scientific and technological pointers. You don't look at it in numbers and figures. You look at where connections can be made. And that's how a brief of a project is re-written by an architect. In this case the design came as the interpreted brief as it set the functions in place and merged and delineated the connections accordingly. In this case, landscape and natural forces orient the brief to create function-driven voids for the students and academic norms, where, the landscape becomes a neutral backdrop to highlight a building. The building or better said, the spread of 'fragments' appear to open out their arms to the surroundings. The landscape then filters into the built fabric, appearing to be stitched into the sloping earth bermed walls. The organisation of the program is such that public (visitor) zones are delineated at the start from private in-house functions. The student's year round programs get defined as spatial

requirements, be it merchandise shops, exhibition gallery, auditorium or formal jury and felicitation courts with celebratory changing lighting. Avoiding standard regulations of rigid school planning, the NID plan works to entertain. A spread of pre-diploma presentation area supports this fragmented chain where an open stage is anchored by the sloping green cover of the building forms. This allows people to sit around during the annual use of this space for convocation and its skewed empty green lines become a landscape element for the rest of the year. The design accounts for the extreme climatic factors by adhering to passive solar architecture with natural cooling and day lighting supported bynorth/south orientation and roof cover to avoid heat gain. The mentioned landscape and water bodies provide for a congenial microclimate. The soft ground covers in the areas surrounding the buildings will be moistened in summer with recycled grey water to avoid reflected heat gain. The

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5. Function works with the form to deliver the convocation grounds where an open stage gets aligned with earth bermed buildings which provide seating during functions and in isolation work as landscape elements. 6.The multifaceted atria offers opportunity for interaction, showcase, landscaping and essential student activities.

Indian Architect & Builder April 2006

1 4 5 2 3 1.dry warm ambiant 2. Fan 3. Water sprinkler 4. Ventilated gavity roof 5. Pot insulated roof 6&8. Bedroom 7. Cool air 9. Adjustable louvres glosed in winter 10. Water trough

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Buildings don't have to be monumental. We are capable of creating dramatic form and we are capable of making dramatic material spaces as well. The idea is to hold your hand and decide which is in a right proportion and manner. That's where the design actually comes inA mature design is not simply picturesque. One of the most important secrets of all work is to make ordinary look extra-ordinary, without trying to jump on doing extra ordinary things. -Sen Kapadia JURY Statement The jury/committee felt that the design concept and master plan of M/s Kapadia+Banker Architects has the quality of an Indian street full of surprises or a constantly evolving urban cityscape open to new themes or ideas which can come up over a period of time and get flexible, clear line, aesthetically pleasing, energy efficient building plan suitable to learner centric culture and seems to be responding to faculty and students need better. It also is flexible enough to involve other architects, if required at some point in time, for the development of campus in its growth phases and provides for a campus that has the possibility of even incorporating buildings which are supported as design centres through sponsorships. The jury/committee opined that such flexibility will be required in view of the funding pattern and other organizational constraints. In view of the cost/time constraints, flexibility and amenability to changes in design and treatment as the campus develops, the design of M/s Kapadia+Banker Architects seems to be more appropriate to NID's current and futuristic needs. It is taking a holistic view of pros, cons, costs and benefits, and looking at the aesthetic and clean campus plan which showed considerable understanding of the evolving needs of a design educational campus and the dynamic and organic nature of NID's growth and pattern of funding that we have accepted the design concept and site plan as presented by M/s Kapadia + Banker Architects. Jury members 1. Hashmukh Shah, Chairman. Governing Council. 2. Dr. Darlie O. Koshy, Executive Director, NID. 3. Sripal C. Seth, Member of Building Committee. 4.Kartikeya Sarabhai, Member of Building Committee. 5. Prof. Neelkanth Chaya, Director, CEPT. 6. Dr. B.V. Doshi, Architect. 7. Dr. Arvind Krishnan, Architect. FACT FILE :National Institute of Design's Proposed PostGraduate Campus Location :Gandhinagar Client :Dr. Darlie O. Koshy Architect :Sen Kapadia Collaborating engineer :Suresh Banker Project team :Jasmine Saluja, Amit Modi, Swati Rangnathan, Guruprasad Shivakamat Sachin Mulay, Arun Naik Project area :1,1300 Sq.m Civil contractor :To be decided Project estimate :Rs. 19.50 Crores Initiation of project :2005 Projected completion :2010 Project

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DETAIL OF DESERT COOLER

1. Living room 2. Dining room 3. Kitchen 4. Bedroom 5. Toilet 6. Built - in desert cooler 7. Frontyard 8. Parking 9. Garden 10. Terrace

FACULTY HOUSING proposed eco-architecture intends to minimise energy loads upto 40 per cent. The building will unveil itself as a complex microcosm of simple ideals. Says Sen,We are not looking for cute aesthetic or the picturesque, we like to look at it more as accidental happening. On any campus impromptu conversation or a chance meeting has a better possibility of survival than organised class meetings. These ideals help to overcome psychological barriers between teachers and students. As a student I was generally afraid to ask questions. Even if you had a question, you would like it personally. The atria of multi-facets that the architects propose offers the opportunity for these actions while offering differential aesthetics. A fragmented pergola enlivens the courtyard with its cast shade of proposed blinds and coloured glass. Suspended sculptures and seating options will lend ambient values. However, it is the opportunity for changing aesthetics is what will make the distinction. Notions of decoration is very important in architecture. So create notions, which are alternative to decoration by generating patterns from light and shade. However, the notion should be very strong and one should have a strong reason to place it there that a common man should understand. Then it becomes acceptable for longer term otherwise it becomes a temporary fashion. The graphics that we have proposed are plain black and white. These graphics provoke an idea or make people think says Sen. Sen explains his design not as an invention but as an existing age-old pattern. The meandering plan and the spatial qualities are a result of wandering along the Pols in Ahmedabad. My favorite one is Doshiwalli pol. They still welcome you in their courtyards and the experience is complete with the light and the building texturesall fragments put together. In design, it is important to fragment and re-arrange those parts to give an experience. Our temples with their pradakshina paths or even old towns were fragmented mainly because of their conducive geography for example, the Pushkar lake and the developments around during the festive season. For NID, I just needed to create this in a contemporary context for an institutionan institution for design says Sen . And as the building continues to evolve, it reinstates the maintenance of logical yet evolutionary ideals.