Conceived as a Holistic Environment and a Sanctuary for Learning

Conceived as a holistic environment and a sanctuary for learning, the campus and buildings of Avasara Academy are meant to serve the evolving needs of this growing and incredibly diverse community.

Settled into the valley slope above the small village of Lavale, Avasara Academy is a residential school for economically disadvan- taged young women in western India. Located just outside the urban periphery of Pune, the school lies at the edge of a rural landscape and a rapidly developing township known as Knowledge City. Uniquely positioned to take advantage of locally shared education resources and incredible social, religious, and economic diversity, Avasara is rapidly establishing itself as a leader in the education and development of young women in India.

Comprised of a collection of simple concrete structures shrouded in bamboo and arranged around an informal series of walkways, court- yards, gardens and terraces, the built environment of the campus was designed for economic eiciency as well as ﬂexibility and readiness to adapt both during and after the design process. The rudimentary framework of each building enabled a process of dialogue and collabora- tion amongst a diverse group of builders, designers, farmers, artists, craftsmen, and engineers who share the belief that collaboration and em- pathy lie at the core of all good work.

Together with these contributors we have created moments of hos- pitality, social interaction, reﬂection, play, ritual, seclusion, performance, and comfort. Intended for a variety of uses, these public and private spaces aspire to give a sense of familiarity and intimacy to the young women living and studying on campus. Culled from local and universal examples of academic, domestic, public and sacred spaces and evolv- ing through a process of inclusion and thoughtful attention to both physical and social environments, the project developed in response to what was already there; climate, landscape, materials, routines, traditions and memory, to create a sanctuary for learning.

Project Signiﬁcance

Entering its third year of existence, the Avasara Academy has grown from a single classroom and dormitory building with 68 students to a multi building campus spread across four acres, serving nearly 300 young women. With a focus on leadership and social entrepreneurialism, the mission of the school is to “educate girls of exceptional promise for a life- time of leadership and contribution to society”. Reﬂecting the religious plu- rality of Indian society, students and teachers come from Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Christian families while proudly sharing the school’s seven core values of integrity, reﬂection, excellence, empathy, interdependence, fortitude, and optimism.

Designed for an eventual capacity of more than 400 residential students and 200-day students, the campus continues to grow. Currently occupied buildings include the initial classroom building, the leadership centre, and the library, with the cafeteria, science labs, and centre for Indian studies, which is due to complete in spring 2019. Planned to both reduce the scale of individual housing clusters while also decentralising the campus, each academic building has residen- tial dormitories on the top ﬂoors with academic spaces on the ground and ﬁrst ﬂoor.

Utilising locally available resources, materials and technologies within an extremely limited budget, cast- in-place concrete columns, beams, and slabs and recycled ﬂyash bricks emerged as the most relevant and appropriate means of producing structure and enclosure. Designed in collaboration with Transsolar KlimaEngineering, a passive cooling system based on local climate data, the thermal mass and fundamental physics of each structure and ex-tensive digital modeling, completely eliminated mechanical systems at the school, saving energy and more importantly, both initial and long-term expenses.

As part of the holistic design of this cooling system, it was determined advantageous to expose the thermally massive ﬂoors and ceilings, eliminat-ing the need for ﬂoor coverings and false ceilings. Solar chimneys create convection and exhaust hot air through carefully placed vents near the ceiling of each space while fresh air is simultaneously cooled and drawn through massive earth ducts that wind their way below each build- ing leading to the classrooms.

Taken from waste material produced by quarries and material suppliers, broken pieces of colourful stone were carefully arranged using local techniques and traditions to cre- ate mosaic ﬂoors that contributed to the thermal mass necessary for the climate system. On the ceilings, the cast concrete slabs remain exposed and are ﬁtted with conduits, pipes, lights and fans before being painted with an array of bright colours devel- oped and designed by Danish artist Malene Bach. In collaboration with our team and craftsmen from the area, Malene used local pigments and dyes to develop custom paints that lend a human scale and inject a sense of life and civility that would otherwise be missing. Also part of the passive cooling system, each building is wrapped in a series of screens made from bam- boo harvested and processed using the experience and tacit knowledge of local craftsmen. Wooden doors and windows reclaimed from demol- ished buildings were used in place of factory-produced steel or aluminium ones, both for economics and value engineering but also for their rich material and experiential qualities.

Storage shelving and bathroom partitions are constructed using an usually unexposed and “undesirable” gray marble that was revealed to be the most cost efective and sustain- able option upon close examination. Each of the six buildings has solar power as of July 2018, with the ﬁrst two buildings in use producing enough power to meet their own needs and even supply electric-ity back to the local grid. Water is harvested, collected and stored throughout the campus and a series of reed bed ﬁltration tanks ﬁlter the septic waste before it is pumped up the hill to be used for landscape irrigation. In this arid region that ex-periences no rainfall for eight months of the year, water consumption needs are met for nine out of twelve months through the combination of careful management, water harvest-ing, and an open well-constructed as part of the site infrastructure.

Developed in collaboration with landscape architect Hemali Samant, and permaculturalists Franko Goehse, and Bernadette Kirsch, a productive landscape provides not only natural beauty, cleaner air, shade and a more habitable microclimate to the local environment but also fruits, vegetables, herbs, and spices that are used in the school kitchen. Aqueducts fed by the water reten- tion pond that in turn is supplied by the reed bed ﬁltration irrigate the site and provide water to not only the plants and trees throughout the campus but also the birds, frogs and other animals that are slowly starting to populate the campus as the lush environment continues to develop.

Project Information

Architect: Samuel Barclay, Dhwani Mehta, Ami Matthan Shoeb Khan, Ketaki Raut, Chirag Bhagat, Paul Michelon, Simone Picano Ji Min An, Anne Geenen, Tofan Rafati, Aamod Narkar

Location: India

Photography: Case Design, Ariel Huber (as indicated)