Kolkata | West Bengal
Keeping in mind the location of the school in the Newtown Area of Kolkata, and its simple surroundings, this school needed to make an impact and establish a distinct identity.
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Principal Designer
Abin Chaudhuri
Design Team
Poorvi Dugar Ajmera, Angshujit Majumder
+ Credits
This school façade project came to us at a stage when the construction of the 2 academic blocks was already underway. The blocks were rather generic, with 6 floors of classrooms, labs, and other facilities arranged towards the periphery around matching central courtyards.
Our brief was to work within these existing parameters to make a school. So we developed a design program in terms of circulation, movement, ventilation, classrooms and other concerns.”
One approaches the site along the inner curve and the blocks are placed at a slight angle facing each other very slightly. They are separated by an active play area.
Structural slabs were projected beyond the building surface all around in a way such that an exact number of panels would fit on all surfaces on the symmetrical cuboids.
Graphical representations of symbols, alphabets and numbers became an inspiration for the screen. Younger children relate to simple lines as letters of the alphabet and as they grow, abstractions of the same would start to look more like alpha, gamma and pi.
488 panels, made of Fibre-Reinforced Plastic (FRP), measuring 3.2 x 3.2 meters envelop each of the two academic blocks. 13 different panels were designed with a combination of small and large alphabets, numbers and symbols. These have been placed in various orientations to achieve a randomized effect on the façade.
