Thapar University Learning Laboratory
THAPAR UNIVERSITY LEARNING LABORATORY
Designplus Associates Services, Mccullough Mulvin Architects
ARCHITECT IN CHARGE
Mccullough Mulvin Architects, Designplus Associates Services
QUANTITY SURVEYOR
Vinod Markanda Delhi
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS
Integral Landscape
STRUCTURAL ENGINEER
Pristine Solutions Delhi
FACADE CONSULTANTS
Kr Suresh, Axis Facades Mumbai
CIVIL
Pristine Solutions Delhi
CONTRACTORS
Gannon Dunkerley & Company Limited, Anj Mumbai
Text description provided by architect.
The Learning Laboratory is a new type of meeting space, an engine for education, a city for students, a destination for conversation; it mediates timeless form and offers complex spatial adventures.
The building comprises a library, lecture theatres and a science faculty, each in a tall red Agra stone volume, with white marble detail, the facades mediated using louvred stone screens like traditional Jaali screens.
A 130m x 130m podium structure runs between and acts as climate modifier.
10m in the air, with giant ramps at either end, it is a natural extension of the pedestrian route.
Below, everything is inhabited within a forked plan, like spreading water; students congregate in the heat of the day around fountains, in the cool shade of a tall concrete structure.
The water cools the air and moves it to allow for a reduction in temperature at the hottest times of the year.
The three buildings have lofty 30m atrium spaces of quite different character - in the library a zip-like tapering void, the science building a shaped city square, the lecture theatres hovering over a built landscape, all three are crossed by dramatic staircases; light spills from tree-filled roofs to the ground below and into the busy under-podium world.
The structure is concrete at a series of scales: a grid of giant columns holds the podium, with herringbone soffits.
Raked columns in the library touch as they meet. The lecture building has 6 theatres suspended back to back, 3 over 3, from a giant order that frees up the floor plans and forms a datum for the dancing staircases.
The architecture is of solid geometric forms, evocative of natural geography - extending nature to form rocky heights and shaded valleys.
This is a contemporary concept founded on a sense of place, sensible to the traditions of Indian architecture.
It is founded on strong sustainability and environmental concerns in a monsoon climate; it is built simply, using local labor and materials; the provision of cooling and shade limit solar gain, the podium with pools makes a local microclimate.
Nature runs through it, from the existing trees retained, to the new landscape planted on the roofs through which light is filtered.
