Selaqui School Case Study

It is a Co-educational and fully Residential School. Client’s programme was to built an international level school which will develop the individual and promote equality of gender and train future leaders in a multicultural and secular environment.

PLANNING ANALYSIS

• The layout of the building, the intensive and luxurious landscaping merges beautifully with surroundings, thus adds to a quiet and learning environment in the school.
• Sports fields have been incorporated in maste plan with some sports fields becoming a part of hostels.
• Staff, services and maintenance have been planned on the periphery with a separate service entry.
• Vehicular traffic is limited to the periphery with an intention to encourage pedestrian movement.
• Around this court are the major blocks that form the backbone of the campus.
• The academic block is placed in front of the main entry.
• The hostels are placed seperately on the rare side of the site.
• The entry road leads to the court of assembly, which is organized around the peepal tree that exists on the site.

ZONING

The various blocks consists of:

• Academic: offices, classrooms, labs, teacher’s rooms, toilets etc.
• Hostel block: separate hostels for girls and boys with common rooms and warden residences.
• Staff Housing
• Dining block: common dining for students and staff and kitchen.
• Sports facilities: swimming pool, tennis, basketball, volleyball, cricket, football, squash and horse riding .
• Other facilities including Infirmary, Auditorium, sculpture workshops

SPATIAL ANALYSIS – Relation of open and built up

DESIGN CONCEPT

• The philosophy of the school emphasis on tradition, and this is translated into an architecture, which works in harmony with the tradition of the local architecture.
• Campus type planning has been involved with the integration of cluster and courtyard forms.
• Interconnection of various activity zones is done in order to make every zone easily accessible to the users.
• The approach is achieved by traditional Indian concept of building elements like courtyard, verandahs, terrace, jalis, deep overhangs, local material, tradition and craftsmanship.
• Proper zoning of academic block, staff-hostels, students hostels, play fields etc. is done to avoid any interference in different type of activities

ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER

1. The Architecture of the campus incorporates variation of scale that in turn is an expression of the buildings function and intent, as dining and academic block has more imposing scale.
2. Conforming to the climate of the region as well as to the traditional architectural expression sloping roofs been incorporated for the entire complex. These sheltering roofs have large overhangs to protect the buildings from the regions fairly heavy rainfall.

ACADEMIC BLOCK

• The academic block is placed in front of the main entry and side of the court of assembly.
• Named Nalanda, after the famed Indian university, the academic block is organized around various levels. These levels are negotiated by steps that are on each of the four sides of a courtyard.
• Informal seating spaces are provided so that they can be used by students during their free time
• It shows an exciting and remarkable play of terraces and courtyards
• At the exact centre of this academic building lies the data centre. Being at the lowest level the roof of this centre becomes the connecting bridge between the blocks.
• The academic block is organized around four courts thus around four such split level stair device. This allows the division of the block into four sub blocks namely, the social science block, the physical science block, the business science block and the arts block.
• The corridors are single loaded with good lighting

CIRCULATION SPACE: Approx 30-35%

ACADEMIC

• Classrooms are bright and airy, are square in plan with a chamfered corner.
• All the classrooms are provided with natural lighting and display.
• Laboratory SIZE: 7.5m x 12.7m
• Student strength: 33
• i.

  e. 95 sq.mt. for 33 pupils

• There are labs for computer, physics, chemistry and biology in the school.
• Besides working area, Technician’s space, preparatory space and store is provided
• Labs are well lit and ventilated.
• Enough storage space has been provided.

RESIDENTIAL

Hostel blocks

• The hostels are placed seprately and on the rare side of the site.
• The playfields are provided separately as well as in between the hostels.
• 4 no. Hostel blocks for boys
• 2 no. hostel blocks for girls.
• Dining block is placed betweenthe girls and boys hostel blocks.

One cluster consists of:

• 12 seven bedded dorms
• 12 four bedded dorms
• 1 common room
• 2 caretake’s residence
• 2 housemaster’s residence
• Each dormitory opens up into the corridor facing the central court
• Courtyards within hostels
• Two adjacent dormitories share common toilets
• Common toilets

LIBRARY

• Library of area 107sq.m is provided including store of 10.

  5sq.m.

• Sitting arrangement for 40-45 student with14 stacks for books.
• Library is in the separate block along with the administration.
• Library has been located in such a way to make it easilyaccessible to the students and for teachers.

SPORTS FACILITIES

Various sport facilities are provided in the campus: Cricket, football, hockey, lawn tennis, horse riding, squash, swimming pool, basketball, volleyball.

HEALTH FACILITIES

The school has well-equipped ten-bedded Infirmary to address the medical problems of the students it has separate provisions for boys and girls including an isolated air-conditioned ward.

SERVICES

• It is placed in centre of boys and girls hostel.
• It serves 500 students at one time.

Dining block

• Storage spaces kept at rear end near the service entry
• It has a different architectural character than rest of campus.
• The folded plate roof gives it more imposing scale.
• It is placed in centre of boys and girls hostel.
• It serves 500 students at one time.

Service blockThe service block is placed at the southern side so that it is directly accessible from the service roadIt contains:

• Laundry
• Carpentry
• Store for furniture
• Electricity rooms

LANDSCAPING

• There is perfect integration of the architecture of the school with its landscape.
• There is an interesting blend of hard as well as soft landscape.
• All the paths are lined with shrubs and trees thus helping to soften the look.
• The layout of the buildings, the extensive and luxurious landscaping merges beautifully with the surroundings. All this adds to a quiet, serene and pollution free environment, which further enhances the living and learning environment in the school.

MATERIALS

• The buildings are largely built of locally available stone. This is the river stone which has been cut and dressed and used as random rubble masonry.
• Exposed brickwork has been used in certain buildings to cover R.C.C. elemants and to provide a contrast to monolithic character of stone.
• In certain parts of acedemic block, funicular shell roofing has been employed. These provide distinctive character to the acedemic bulding and also reduce cost of construction.

INFERENCES

1. ALL THE BLOCKS ARE WELL INTEGRATED WITH THE SITE AND MERGES INTO THE OVERALL LANDSCAPE AND WELL CONNECTED TO EACH OTHER THROUGH WALKWAYS
2. THE ACADEMIC BLOCK HAS BEEN EXCELLENTLY DESIGNED AROUND A CENTRAL TERRACE AND COURTYARDS. THERE IS A VISUAL CONTINUITY OF THE CLASSROOMS TO COURTS AND TERRACES. OPEN SPACES ALL AROUND ENHANCE OUTDOOR LEARNING ACTIVITIES AND RELATES WELL THE BUILT FORM.
3. THERE IS PERFECT INTEGRATION OF THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE SCHOOL WITH ITS LANDSCAPE. THERE IS AN INTERESTING BLEND OF HARD AS WELL AS SOFT LANDSCAPE.
4. USE OF LOCAL MATERIALS AND SIMPLE TECHNIQUES GIVES IT AN ETHIC LOOK AND FORMS A PART OF LOCAL ENVIRONMENT.
5. LIMITING THE VEHICULAR MOVEMENT TO THE PERIPHERY ALLOWS A TRAFFIC FREE ENVIRONMENT AND SAFE PEDESTRIAN MOVEMENT WITHIN THE CAMPUS.
6. THE MOVEMENT THROUGH INFORMALLY LAID CORRIDORS SURROUNDED BY COURTYARDS IS A PLEASANT VIEW. HOWEVER HOSTELS LACKS IN SECURITY