Project Name: Community Canvas School
Authors: pk_iNCEPTiON
CITATION
A contemporary spatial intervention in a village school to extend the space and enclose a play-yard finds a unique expression that is sensitive to the immediate context and the specific use of the building. Designed to assimilate existing classrooms, the new space is articulated around a circular central court with gentle steps leading interior spaces enclosed with a meandering wall.
This wall is cut, folded, bent, broken and deconstructed to create an engaging object for play. The light steel roof with its segmental cut hovers over this wall. The space sits with ease and dignity within the village neither surrendering to and nor overpowering the context. The children, primary users of the space, are encouraged to embrace their curious selves in an act of play. A delightful community space thus enfolds.
A transmutable aspect of the school is its expression as a pavilion rather than a box. By liberating the box, the architects diminish the idea of the school as a place of order opening up possibilities for the children to express through drawing on the walls and floors. The architecture establishes and then diminishes boundaries with the village and finds new forms of socialisation within the wider fabric.
In India, practices have an enormous opportunity in the hinterland where small buildings with modest budgets can make significant difference to the lives of the people who inhabit them. In a context of an agrarian village, this project moves to re-connect and embed architecture as a beautiful community space with exceptional grace and fidelity, simultaneously serving its purpose as a learning space for children and therefore, Community Canvas School by pk_iNCEPTiON is a Citation Project in The Merit List.
Images & Drawings: courtesy pk_iNCEPTiON; Photographs: © Yash Katariya, Aashlesha Bhosale, Neel Bhothra