domus 57 December 2016 CONTENTS 23

January Volume 06 / Issue 03

2017 R200
Contributors
Suprio Bhattacharjee Author Design Title

Authors
Editorial
Joseph Rykwert Kaiwan Mehta 24 Time and arguments
Aparna Andhare
Imran Ali Khan
A. Srivathsan Joseph Rykwert 25 Domus 1000 Domus seems indestructible
Miki Desai
Tanuja Kanvinde Confetti
Sanjay Kanvinde Design Cultures
Suprio Bhattacharjee
Marco De Michelis
Aparna Andhare 28 Sanjay Chitara Drawing sacred spaces

Photographers
Design Cultures
Sergio Grazia
Photographix India Imran Ali Khan 38 Remembering the Forgotten
Dhiman Chatterjee
CEPT Archives
Arvind Talati: A forgotten pioneer of Contemporary museum for architecture in India
A. Srivathsan 46 modern Indian architecture To fill a gap in history

Miki Desai
INDIA 058 LA CITTÀ DELL’ UOMO Tanuja Kanvinde
Sanjay Kanvinde 56 Achyut Kanvinde — Akar
Contemporary museum for architecture in India
Drawing modern perspectives

Project
Suprio Bhattacharjee 70 Tushar Desai Associates Spatial Fulcrums

82 Patrick Berger – Jacques Anziutti The Canopy, Paris

96 Vincent Van Duysen Merging design and architecture

Feedback
Marco De Michelis 102 Venice
Rassegna
108 Outdoor

December Volume 06 / Issue 02

2016 R200

INDIA 057 LA CITTÀ DELL’ UOMO

LA CITTÀ DELL’ UOMO

057 December 2016
Cover: The volume of the building for
the Green Acres Academy is defined
by its concrete surfaces; the other
defining feature of the building is the
detailing of its aluminium vitrines and
coloured glazing. The windows activate
the façade into narrow horizontal bands
that actually help creating the illusion
of a building longer or wider than it is.
As a design strategy, in its current built
state, these window openings offer a
dynamism and visual vibration within
otherwise simple and rational box-like
enclosures – a superimposed order of
seeming randomness

Sketch of The Green Acres Academy, Chembur,

Mumbai designed by Tushar Desai Assosiates
24 EDITORIAL
TIME AND ARGUMENTS
As one more solar year will end in the next
few weeks and days, we will all celebrate and
prepare enthusiastically for a new year and
newer times, in hopes and in aspirations. In
the moving of time we experience joy and
hopes but we also prepare to lose and forget.
Time is often stretched to expand and it often
flashes past us in speed and over-subscribed
spaces. In the magical and the sacred, often,
time is suspended or it collapses millions of
years and lives that would have ever passed
or partaken of these magic rituals and sacred
spaces into one stream of shared belonging.
Time is often measured in history and time is
often twisted in history. History brings time
to us on its own terms. Museums and archives
collect time, preserve it; but museums and
archives often also help us forget time, lose
it forever. Amnesia is often the motif of our
contemporary times, as much as we fight over
history and myths. Myths are fantastical and
they can take over imagination, but they also
hide within themselves, suppressed desires and
social anxieties, and the churning of cultural
journeys. Myths play with time on the outside,
but they hide detailed notes on time sometimes
on the underside. Myths are like a carpet of
time, with a pattern or a picture presented
large and visible, but when you go close to
it, textures and weaves start emerging as
independent objects engaging in a battle over
space and time, stories and ideas.
Archives and stories are the repositories of
time, and history dips into these to shape a
narrative of human culture and civilisation. In
this issue we dip into archives and histories to
explore and understand what contributes to the
many design cultures in human civilisations
and especially in India. Time is enmeshed with
space — and whether it is the geography of
home or the monumental, sacred spaces they
have all tried to collapse or negotiate time.
Places and geographies are active zones of
politics and cultural processes and it is our
constant attempt to understand the complexity
of what makes a place and how the lives of
people and objects are part of these places
— their structure, their composition, their
occupation, and their journeys. What is the
relationship between life and places, politics
and spaces in the everyday lives of people and
their societies, their objects and their stories.
But we also ask what is the relationship of
history to objects, especially when objects
challenge history, rather than history providing
a context to objects. In this context we look at
images that challenged the normative sacred
space and produced more fragile sacred spaces;
fragile but sharp and strong in the colours
and lines that drew these spaces and magic of
Kaiwan Mehta
sacred belief. As shrine cloths make the seat
of gods and these enshrined bundles of cosmic
energies a paraphernalia of traveling objects
— and the shrine cloth is an object now that
is more personal yet cosmic — the journey of
the Kullu Valley gods claim a geography and
the shrine moves out to a celebration and
battle of rights and ideas. The painting and
motifs on the cloth, the Mohras (cast faces
of gods and goddesses) and the palkis are all
intricate objects of art and design not just in
their making, but in the relationship of their
uses; their bodily as well as psychological
engagement with cultures and geographies
of space, as well as believers and viewers.
Space and time collapse in relationships here
that are only recognisable through cultures
of story-telling and rituals, where stories are
words of refuge, wisdom, caution, creative-
play, and memory, and rituals are the bodily
engagements of human life with eternal time
and cosmic space. The ritual as well as the
story, measures and squares, time and space.
Another measure of time and history that we
dwell upon in this issue are the archives of
architects; we began this in a focussed way in
the last issue - focussing on the archives and
publications of architects and their works, in
India. In the last issue we looked at four very
recent publications — Women Architects in
India: Histories of Practice in Mumbai and
Delhi; Christopher Benninger: Architecture for
Modern India; The Architecture of Hasmukh
C. Patel: Selected Projects,1963-2003 and
The Structure - Works of Mahendra Raj.
In this issue we continue by looking at an
exhibition on the architect Arvind Talati
and a forthcoming publication on Achyut
Kanvinde. Whether it is the history of women
architects and women clients in India, or more
contemporary archives of a practice such as
that of Christopher Charles Benninger, or
more senior practices with obviously much
older archives as in the case of Mahendra
Raj, Hasmukh Patel, I M Kadri, or Achyut
Kanvinde and Arvind Talati — these are all
repositories of architecture and architectural
practice in India that are now entering the
public sphere. As the vitrine (an image of
this marked the opening page of the Confetti
section in the last issue DI_56) on books
on architecture in India at The State of
Architecture: Practices and Processes in India
(curated by Rahul Mehrotra, Ranjit Hoskote
and Kaiwan Mehta; presented by UDRI at
the National Gallery Modern Art, Mumbai)
discussed how the 1980s with the Festivals of
India two exhibitions (Vistara and Architecture
in India) and book-catalogues accompanying
them actually gives a push to more post-
domus 57 December 2016
independence writing and history writing on
architecture, hoping to produce a narrative for
Modern and contemporary India. Since then
few surveys have made brave attempts to write
the rich history of architects and architectural
practice and building-making in India — from
Jon Lang, Madhavi Desai, and Miki Desai to
Rahul Mehrotra and Peter Scriver — they have
all tried to write broader histories outlining
themes and narratives to make sense of this
enormous and gargantuan world of building-
making and architecture. But at the same
time the limited nature of publications on
individual practices and senior practices, with
just about two historians writing introductions
to these monographs, limited our sense of
what it means to practise architecture in
India — and what are the challenges, travels
and travails of the architect and architecture
in India. What was published and what was
written was important, necessary, helped us
develop perspectives — but we just needed
more! India’s tryst with the modern and the
traditional got too soon too bracketed, and
became an ideology, and a formula, rather
than a creative expression of challenges and
times. The emergence of more monographs
and books, and the availability to access more
archives through these publications I am
sure will open up a Pandora’s Box of history
pretty seriously. A few monographs and books
remained important — some very crucial ones
— but with a library of monographs and books
we are at the threshold of beginning many new PROJECTS
conversations and arguments. Yet we lack the
kind of commentaries and critical writings such
as Gautam Bhatia’s Punjabi Baroque (Penguin
Books, 1994) and Romi Khosla’s The Loneliness
of a Long Distance Future — Dilemmas of
Contemporary Architecture (Tulika Books, 2002)
but one knows that those will surely emerge
soon too, as indeed the space of exhibitions and
publications has now really opened up in the
scene for architecture in India.
The archives draw out time for us and help us
challenge histories and myths, ask questions
off our aspirations and imaginations with and
for architecture; they can, and should, draw
new debates on what the architect does, and
what can s/he do, and what should s/he do?
As well as the evaluation and imagination of
architecture, in multiple contexts of time and
space, can now be creatively and critically
nuanced as well as argued out. km
@Domus_India
Tushar Desai Associates
SPATIAL FULCRUMS
Exposed concrete, a choreography of lit and solid volumes, as well as careful use of colour makes a
resounding splash into the staid architectural scene in Mumbai as the design envisages the spaces
for a school. School buildings are a crucial building type – as one spends most of one’s formative
years in these buildings – other than one’s home; and this building explores that vocabulary of
spaces conducive to learning within the mechanisms of urban environments
Text Suprio Bhattacharjee
Photos Photographix India
76 PROJECTS
Few materials capture the imagination of the
architect as much as exposed concrete. Since
the days of mid-20th century ‘béton-brut’ where
the harsh qualities of the material and its ease
of being cast in varying conditions – from the
chic reality of Paris to the arid landscapes of
Chandigarh – made it the material of choice for
emerging architectural (and economic) contexts,
concrete has graduated into a ‘fine’ building
material as exemplified in the works of Louis
I Kahn and more recently, Tadao Ando and
Brad Cloepfil. Here in India, exposed concrete
found favour amongst our first and second
generation modernists – mostly concentrated
within and around the narrow geography
of Delhi and Ahmedabad – driven also by
remarkable engineers such as Mahendra Raj,
with a few sporadic incidents seen elsewhere –
such as in Bengaluru.
Inspite of tremendous building activity in
reinforced concrete within the city of Mumbai,
exposed or fair-faced concrete is rarely seen
within public buildings – barring a handful
of projects meant for specific or private
consumption, such as individual houses. The
obvious reason one can think of is that the
culture of building that exposed concrete
necessitates – exceptional workmanship for
one – is rare to come by in a setting where
construction volume counts more than
construction quality.
Tushar Desai states that they were fortunate to
get a contractor who was admirably willing to
take up the challenge – and most importantly
– a client who was a willing collaborator and
intrinsic part of the process. It is the first time
the practice has explored this material – and
in the process this meant going back to seeing
the building as a gesamtkunstwerk – such
domus 57 December 2016 domus 57 December 2016 PROJECTS 77
that the technology design is as proficient
and meticulously integrated into the whole as
the pattern drawings made for the concrete
shuttering. Chaula Trivedi, of Tushar Desai
and Associates, mentions that all the drawings
were issued by their offices – including the
integrated services drawings after close
scrutiny – as many conduits had to be laid in
situ prior to pouring the concrete – with no
room for rectifications to be done later. Expert
advice was sought in terms of mentors from
Tushar’s alma mater in Ahmedabad; while a
number artisans and vendors were brought
in from that city to execute aspects such as
the rendering to finish the concrete surfaces,
as well as the intricate mechanics of the
swivelling and pivoted aluminium windows.
As we walk through the building – one comes
across evidence that this has very much been
a learning process for all involved – not only Previous spread: view
of the exterior façade
in terms of using a specific material language, of the Green Acres
but even in terms of the spatial strategy that Academy, Mumbai; this
the building proposes – linked to what the page, left: the central
architects hope would, in the long run, also area corridor on the third
floor is spacious enough
determine the way in which students and to allow for informal
teachers engage – as well as offering enough dialogue; bottom left:
flexibility for the school’s spaces to transform common spaces are
and adapt to changing needs. designed so as to create
a sense of expanse within
School buildings are a crucial building type the building; bottom
– as one spends most of one’s formative right: varying elevations
years in these buildings – other than one’s along the corridors offer
home. Recently one has seen a number of children the delight of
a play area; far below:
schools in the city designed appallingly as initial sketches of the
nothing other than mundane commercial building; opposite page:
buildings replete with curtain wall glazing and the detailing of the
centralised air conditioning – thus severing aluminium vitrines of
the windows create an
the individual from the outside. This balance illusion of the building
between a comfortable learning environment being longer and wider
and an exposure to the elements is what a than it is
78 PROJECTS domus 57 December 2016 domus 57 December 2016 PROJECTS 79

school necessarily needs to offer. Owing to This page, above:

recent building regulations, it is no longer exterior view of the
south façade of the
mandatory for schools to have their own building; left: a set
dedicated open spaces and playgrounds – as of the first approved
such within an increasingly densifying city, sketches of the
school buildings are necessarily taking a building; apposite
page: the double-height
vertical stance – and that brings along with windows allow for
it a number of challenges. adequate natural light
“Schools have always been horizontal,” Chaula and ventilation
Trivedi reminisces as we walk through the
expansive volumes below the building’s raised
underbelly – and this thought becomes a
key driver in the building’s articulation of
its plan. The centre of the plan is given over
to a large column-less space on each floor –
bookended by classroom blocks towards the
east and west – each at a split level above
or below the adjacent. The junctions of these
two spatial conditions is where the architects
choose to play – with mini-amphitheatre-like
spatial fulcrums that become impromptu
interaction spaces or allow for spontaneous
activities – besides offering a more exciting
and experiential route to ascend or descend.
This is in addition to the mandatory fire stairs
and elevators – as such there is no doubt about
which of these stairs will be more favoured
by the occupants. Each floor thus becomes
a landscape – an otherwise monotonous
flatness eschewed in favour of a set of distinct
spatial zones – each at a specific elevation
- that overcomes the limitation of the lack
of ‘ground’ – which over here offers children
(more than adults perhaps!) the sheer joy
and delight of play and thrill-filled physical
activity (much to the chagrin of the harried
teacher). From a planning perspective, the
multiple levels result in the counter-intuitive
effect of actually making the tight floor plan
seem larger than it is – increasing the sense
of horizontal expansion and thus the sense of
depth as sightlines expand both horizontally
and diagonally.
This split-level internal spatial organisation
imparts the building its outward appearance
80 PROJECTS domus 57 December 2016 domus 57 December 2016 PROJECTS 81

1 Classroom
2 Toilets 6 6
3 Jungle Gym
4 Library
5 Administration
1 6 Staircase 1
1
1 2 2
1
1
1 1 1

1
1 1

1 1 1
3
1 The Green Acres Academy,
Chembur, Mumbai

Name of the firm (architectural), location: 3

Tushar Desai Assosiates, Mumbai

SECOND FLOOR PLAN Client

Green Acres Academy 5

Developers
Apurva Natvar Parikh Group

Design team
Lead Design: Tushar Desai; Chaula Trivedi
A Project Team: Abdulla Gavandi; Bhushan
Kumawat; Riddhi Rathod; Payal Mehta;
Kavita Jadhav; Anka Kacholia

Consultants SECTION AA
Services: Sheth Techno Consultants Pvt. Ltd.
1 Structure: Multi Media Consultants
1 2 2 Environmental: VK:e Environment 0 5M
Liaison: Agarwal Associates
1
1 Contractors
3 Civil Contractor: A G BUILDCON
1 Electrical Contractor: M/s Turnkey
Electrical Engineers
Carpentry Contractor: Vinod carpenter
3 1
B 1 1 B Plumbing: Innovator Projects Pvt Ltd
4
HVAC: Innovator Projects Pvt Ltd
Windows: Giriraj Fenestration
Engineering Pvt. Ltd.
Doors: Vinod Vishwakarma
Paints: Aainuddin Painting
Flooring: Kailash Verma
A Ceiling: Aainuddin Painting CONCEPT: VOLUMETIC DEVELOPMENT

THIRD FLOOR / TYPICAL FLOOR PLAN

Suppliers
Hardware: M/s Hardware Point
M/s Shivam Hardware
Lighting: Source 1 Luminaries Pvt Ltd
Workstations: Imported from China
Furniture: Imported from China
Toilets: Hindware; Jaguar
Paints: Asian Paints
1 1 1 1 Materials for façade
1 1 Exposed RCC
Silver Anodized Aluminium Windows
1 1 1 Chajjas: Silver Anodized Aluminium
1 Windows
Glass: Asahi reflective glass
1 1 1 Paint for exposed RCC: Krisna concare –
4 Acrylic TRS
Other Wall surfaces: Asian Paints
1 1 1
4 Built-up area
Total built-up: 7980 m2
1 3 1 1 Phase 1 (ground+3 floors): 4960 m2
Basement: 1280 m2
Phase 2 (4th floor): 1100 m2
6
Cost of project: 30 crores

Initiation of project: 2012 (Design Phase)

Year of completion
Phase 1: June 2015
Phase 2: June 2017
Phase 3: June 2019

SECTION BB

0 5M
CONCEPTUAL SKETCH OF VOLUMES INSIDE THE BUILDING ELEVATION SKETCH: MASS AND VOID STUDY CONCEPT SKETCH: WINDOW DESIGN
82 PROJECTS domus 57 December 2016 domus 57 December 2016 PROJECTS 83

– resulting in the vertically staggered

articulation of the individual box-like volumes
as they rise from west to east. In the building’s
undercroft – a large open space that is used for
gathering and assembly, with the canteen to
the west – this vertical ascension of volumes
results in a dramatic ceiling landscape – with
a firmament of exposed beam networks that
heave up to define distinct spatial conditions
over the flat ground, held aloft by what appear
to be massive columns at the periphery.
The columns offer a sense of enclosure and
demarcate an edge to the vast space contained
underneath – but they also hint at what is to
come – the building in its current state is only
a third of its designed eventual scale – over
the next few years, the remaining floors will be
built across two phases. The naked structure
is a delight to trace – beefy and massive as
opposed to light and filigree – with details
meant to accommodate (and thus obscure and
integrate) services – each beam has a notch
at the centre of its soffit running along its full
length sized to accommodate strip-lights (thus
also making the beams appear visually lighter
and finer), while beam stiffeners hop languidly
from side to side.
The split and stagger results in sectional shifts
– the first glimpse of which is seen from the
ground level as one peeks into the first floor
administration – that also becomes a ‘balcony’
to address the gathering below (a glass panel
slides sideways) – besides offering a strong
visual link with the most public of the school’s
spaces with the one that is most frequented
by visitors. On the upper levels, the sectional
shift allows for double height spaces nested
within the ensemble that gradually ascend
the building’s spatial structure – these spaces,
highlighted on the façade by polychromatic
vitrines in vertical ascent that break the children the delightful possibility of slipping
otherwise horizontal delineation of the window in (or out) quietly without the knowledge of
openings, are planned to hold libraries and the teacher as she bends over a student’s desk
activity rooms, in varying interconnections for a closer look.
with the landscape within. The sectional shift The concrete surfaces become a very tactile
also results in the clever placement of the element here in these internal spaces – with
service spaces and restroom areas – tucked their all-pervasive presence – and the economy
as they are along the fire stairs in a sectional of the material and its long-term durability
configuration that allows three service floors are already beginning to show in spaces
per two classroom floors – thus ensuring that where plastered and painted surfaces are
these spaces are always immediately accessible beginning to show traces of wear, with the
without much trouble. immediate adjacent concrete surfaces intact.
The neutral grey of the exposed concrete The architects were able to convince the clients
becomes a mute substrate for the play of for this (unconventional material – in Mumbai
colour on the inside, and the architects have terms) by proving that the effective cost is not
charted a specific scheme for each spatial more than a generic brick wall plastered and
enclosure, that changes not only as one painted on both sides. As such, the building
traverses horizontally, but vertically as well. is built as a reinforced concrete frame with
On the inside, the classrooms are designed the non-load-bearing (thinner at 5 inches)
as luminescent enclosures – most of them concrete walls supported thereupon. In their
with light filtering in from three sides – with next school project for the same clients, the
the light tempered by the articulation of architects are now pushing the system further
the window openings as narrow horizontal – by envisaging the building as a monolithic
bands with light shelves – that gives the structural whole, with deep beams punctured
building its distinctive external appearance. with openings – such that structure and skin
This page: the central
Many of the classrooms are designed as become one. corridor on the third
rooms-within-rooms (in light aluminium and The detailing of the concrete structure in floor involves the use
glass construction – thus allowing for future such cases is of great importance – and I am of colour along the
flexibility and spatial reorganisation), with shown how on the inside, conduits for split staircase and on certain
walls to balance the
their height brought down at the edges in the air conditioning units and electrical lines are neutral grey of the
form of the archetypal ‘house-with-a-sloping- integrated into beam notches. From there, the exposed concrete;
roof ’ such that it responds to the scale of conduits run to the outdoor air conditioning opposite page: views
the child – with enough surfaces on lockers units (there is no central air-conditioning) of the central area
corridor and pre-school
and walls for children to draw and display – placed in the deep vertical recesses of the classroom on the
class work at heights comfortable for them façade, to be later enclosed with screens once second floor
to reach. This sensitivity to scale is also seen the entire building is complete (regulations
in the design of the classroom doors – with a forbid them from building the screens at
little ‘wicker-gate’ inset into each that offers this point). This does make the building feel
uncomfortably visually pock-marked at places
84 PROJECTS domus 57 December 2016
by these units at this point – but this is a
temporary blight until the said completion
of the building. As such it brings home the
point that the building is very much a work-
in-progress – and needs to be seen and
appreciated as that.
Besides the concrete surfaces, the other
defining feature of the building is the detailing
of its aluminium vitrines. The windows activate
the façade into narrow horizontal bands
that actually help in creating the illusion
of a building longer or wider than it is. As a
design strategy, in its current built state, these
window openings offer a dynamism and visual
vibration within otherwise simple and rational
box-like enclosures – a superimposed order
of seeming randomness (that the architects
are quick to point out is excruciatingly
articulated to match specific horizontal lines
and window area calculations as specified
by their environmental consultants) – where
the dull concrete surface offers a sombre
backdrop to the glint of anodized aluminium
– an impression of a building that is at
once ‘technical’ as it is playful – which is
not necessarily untrue considering that the
building is actually built to adhere to a certain
economy. To draw parallels from across the
globe, I am immediately reminded of the work
of Riegler Riewe and their buildings for the
Technical University in Graz, Austria. Here,
the detailing of the windows themselves is an
interesting lesson in technique – aluminium
frames set into the exposed concrete walls
are divided horizontally by transoms that are
also the support for the cantilevered light-
shelves between each horizontal glazed band
– all constructed in aluminium tubes – their
construction clearly visible to the naked eye
upon close inspection. The light-shelves temper
and moderate the light entering the spaces – by
cutting out the harsh sunlight (and thus the
heat) while also allowing the light to bounce off
onto the ceiling and thus illuminate the deeper
recesses of the plan. Additionally, the light-
shelves also offer an exciting element of relief
to the otherwise understated building envelope
– with its play of light and shade, and the
glint of bright edges seen against the depth of
shadows. The windows pivot outward to allow
for ventilation – the building can be entirely
naturally ventilated when the weather permits
it and is designed as such – otherwise the
classrooms are air-conditioned boxes within the
common spaces that are naturally ventilated.
Levers and gears are used to operate the
windows – and much of it was custom-designed
with the aluminium fabricators. This allows
for all the windows (including the double-
height vitrines) to be operated with ease – as
such ensuring an added layer to the already
dynamic façade.
What remains to be seen is how the current
experience of chancing upon the building as
a low-slung entity in a non-place mid-rise
suburban neighbourhood (with an adjacent
glazed building by Somayya-Kalappa –
dignified but not at their very best) transforms
as construction proceeds on the upper levels
in the forthcoming months. As a piece of
architecture on its own right – it offers an
unchallenged and open ground condition
that mirrors the building across the street
– a clubhouse completed almost a decade
earlier by the same practice – where too, the
ground plane is conceived of as open and
unencumbered. There are also challenges to
be overcome with the pedagogical intent of the
school – and whether the spatial conditions
offered by the architects translates into an
domus 57 December 2016 PROJECTS 85
This page, right: the
common area on the
ground floor comprises
double-height stilt
areas; bottom: detail of
the central staircase;
opposite page, top:
detail of the window
from the exterior;
bottom: levers and
gears are used to
operate the custom-
designed windows
active and enabling learning environment
embraced by the students and (most
importantly) teachers – and if one goes by
how the school has been used ever since its
opening – the results are encouraging and
definitely positive – with parents seeking their
children’s admissions into the school driven by
the sheer wonder of its architecture – and the
mini-amphitheatres becoming the hubbub of
children activity during recesses.
For a building that can be seen as an
‘experiment’ – for all stakeholders involved
– the client, the architects, the builders, the
myriad vendors and the technical design
team – this is definitely a case-study in what
sheer tenacity can achieve in a challenging
building context such as that of Mumbai. It
also displays the importance of exceeding the
expectations of the brief to conceive of a socially
aspirational architecture that would otherwise
be impossible to think of within the rather
rigid building regulations of the city. As such it
also evidences the architects’ inventiveness and
capacity to interpret these tight regulations
into an evocative and vibrant spatial tapestry
within a remarkable piece of architecture
that is both understated and bold – with the
possibilities of use and the adaptability of the
architecture as key considerations, as well as
the experiential journey that each user makes
with its inherent multiplicity of trajectories
and impressions – not unlike those made
within a city – and in this case even more so,
with the classrooms as independent spatial
entities within the larger reinforced concrete
envelope – sitting as ‘houses’ amongst ‘streets’
that traverse the ‘terrain’ of the building-as-
landscape – in stark contrast to the generic
school building consisting of a double loaded
corridor with classrooms in monotonous
enfilade (the architects mention about how the
newly appointed teachers took some time to
adjust to the ‘spatial freedom’ of the school –
with noticeably positive and welcoming effects).
The resultant success of the building brings to
mind Herman Hertzberger’s assertions about
the “distinction between shared conditions
and individual acts of expression (which) sees
urbanist thinking admitted into architecture
where it creates inside a building the awareness
of a communal area analogous to the collectivity
in the city, alongside the generally more shut-
off private domains.” One hopes for more such
enticing buildings within the rather tepid
architectural culture of Mumbai.