Learning and nurturing a sustainable tomorrow should go hand-in-hand and in this curated list of green schools in India, every brick, beam and classroom is a commitment to a greener future. Brought to you from the archives of AD India, these green schools are examples of public, institutional architecture that prioritise environmental responsibility.
A Rajasthan School Designed For The Desertscape
The sun-seared hardscape of Rajasthan has that intangible quality of rousing the romantic storyteller lying latent in many of us, as though it’s been made to order for evocative, dramatic fantasy. For Sanjay Puri, tasked with the very real-world undertaking of building a school there, though, had to accommodate the idea of functionality into a three-acre parcel in a small town belonging to this cinematic scape. “This school is a part of a 100-acre township in Ras that has been developed to house people working in a cement plant,” says Puri.
The weather worries were readily handled, with Puri choosing to work with materials and creating a layout that would suit the climate, context and topography. Buildings and architecture that have stood the test of time were significant primers, with the school’s architecture “imbibing the organic character of Indian villages and old cities”. The Rajasthan School, therefore, is a “low-rise, three-level school with open, enclosed and semi-enclosed spaces of varying volumes”.
From the choice of building material to layout configuration, Puri’s plan for the school was all about innovating within context. “The structure is RCC framed, with fly-ash bricks, and finished in terracotta-like colour for the painting on the facade.” The north orientation of the design, and the “screen walls on the east, west and south”, were all thoughtfully planned to suit the sun-scorcher of a state. Added to that is the open circulation that makes the structure energy-efficient. “The layout is intentionally fragmented, allowing open landscaped spaces to be interspersed with the school’s learning spaces,” Puri elaborates. This mesh of open, sheltered and semi-enclosed spaces were also important to allow for natural ventilation and light, even as it reduced the heat gains. – Gauri Kelkar
Design And Nature Connect In This Bengaluru School
In 2010, Saurabh Gupta and Akanksha Gupta made their first site visit with the EuroSchool Foundation near the lush Bannerghatta National Park. The 20,000-square-metre site has the school campus covering 11,000 square metres. “The larger idea was to forge a connection between the students and their natural surroundings, exploring how the built environment could influence their development. We and our clients had been deliberating on it for 10 years before the foundation was even dug up. The core strategy of respecting nature continued to be the driving factor in every aspect of the design and construction of the school.” say the duo.
The design is guided by the primary motive to cultivate respect and curiosity for nature amongst students. The spatial layout worked in tandem with the school’s teaching methodology, and in fact influenced the curriculum, with it becoming an intrinsic part of the planning process. This was achieved through many spatial strategies. Outdoor classrooms were planned in addition to the indoor learning spaces to encourage students to observe, learn and interact with their environment. “Our design attempts to do this through strategies where learning happens in, from and with nature. Hence, the outdoor spaces are a fundamental part of the school’s architecture,” explain the architects. – Bindu Gopal Rao
An Open, Earthy Tamil Nadu School Makes Learning A Breeze
It isn’t easy to build a full-fledged K12 campus in rural India, fitted with modern facilities and built-in sustainability—but Santhosh Shanmugam and Raja Krishnan of Shanmugam Associates were up for the challenge. In their design for the Rane Vidyalaya, a CBSE school run by the Rane Foundation in the village of Theerampalaym in Tamil Nadu, the Chennai-based architecture firm defied all budget constraints and imminent deadlines—and structural cliches as well.
Inspired by the construct of local houses and temples, the exterior of the school sees layers of red wire-cut bricks sourced from local kilns alternated with grey fly ash bricks that have been recycled from cement waste. Clay-moulded jalis are layered over UPVC windows—an extension of the vernacular design that also facilitates ventilation and eliminates the need for air-conditioning. The architects were also particular about limiting sharp edges in the design of the building: it isn’t unusual to see columns encased within rounded corners. The softer silhouettes make for an inviting edifice—one that subverts the strictness traditionally associated with Indian academics.
At the heart of the school is the indoor courtyard, which serves as a central assembly space. Well-ring perforations in the roof suffuse the space with natural light, offering a direct connection with the outdoors. “The perforations in the roof vent out the hot air, which, combined with the ventilation from the windows, is lifted up to create a tunnel effect,” explains Krishnan. The perforations also make for some interesting shadows all around the interiors, shifting through the day and creating moments of visual interest within the space. – Avantika Shanka
A Inclusive, Climate-Responsive School In Palanpur
They say places you knew as a child seem smaller when you see them again. The opposite is true for Nishant Mehta, founder and principal architect at Studio NM, who has always dreamed of big things for his hometown. A quaint little settlement in north Gujarat, Palanpur is best known as the birthplace of several prominent diamond merchants. Taking a breather from his design practice in South Mumbai, Mehta decided it was time to give back to his community—by reimagining a heritage building for the modern world.
Acting like a ‘living laboratory’, as Nishant puts it, the school is spread across a massive 35,000 square feet. The volume of the building is split between three levels with thin creeks between them. Ceilings were modulated with double-height spaces and triple-height corridors, along with bridges, to achieve visual connectivity. This also helps control the echo, that benefits hearing-impaired students—one of the many thoughtful details one will find spread across the campus.
Crafting a learning space like this might seem like a quixotic undertaking for most developers but Sahyog blends into its surroundings almost seamlessly—camouflaging as a sand dune, while also acting like an oasis in the middle of the desert. Unbearable levels of heat were brought under control by building a long buffer space in the southern phase. Brick jalis were used extensively to allow hot air to pass from the central corridor, while letting cool air enter. “The Palanpur gymkhana and government municipality building with their jalis and jharokhas served as prime inspiration,” says Nishant. Skylights punctuate the entire space, allowing students with photosensitive skin to orient themselves in the school. Elsewhere, rough and polished kota stone floors have been used for a very practical reason. “This change of texture was picked up by visually-impaired students allowing them to differentiate spaces,” Nishant adds. – Adarsh Soni
A 15-Year-Old Rural School In Andhra Pradesh Gets A Sustainable Makeover
Some years ago, when Eliza Higgins and Cyrus Patell of CollectiveProject designed a Montessori in Bengaluru—an adaptive reuse of a watch factory—they were approached by many potential clients to design similar green schools in India. “Somehow, none of it excited us as the conversation revolved more around money than about the impact of design on schooling.” However, six years ago, when the Penna Foundation, associated with cement factories in rural Andhra Pradesh, approached the duo to re-envision the Penna Foundation School, attended by the children of their workers, they felt deeply inspired. The 15-year-old school was part of the company’s CSR initiative, set up in close proximity to the factory located in Talaricheruvu, a tiny village where summers tend to be frustratingly hot and dry.
The materiality of the project was rooted faithfully in sustainable values, right from the onset. The school was built entirely by local labour. As the nearest town, Tadipatri, was a processing hub for Kadappa stone, waste material from these units was brought in for the flooring. Cement, a readily available resource, was not only used as building material but also sanded down to a sophisticated grey finish on the walls. The most visually arresting feature, though, is the expansive bamboo canopy that now roofs the previously unusable outdoor areas. About 12,000 seasoned and well-oiled bamboo poles, sourced through local forestry department programmes in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, rest on a light metal framework. – Rajashree Balaram
This Hostel In Gurgaon Is A Model For Efficient Design
The girl’s hostel of St. Andrew’s Institute of Technology and Management in Gurgaon is an exemplar of efficient design. A project by ZED Lab—a New Delhi-based practice committed to “zero energy design”—the building sees vernacular materials and theories reimagined through modern architectural systems. Most significantly, it is a testament to the process of reinvention—taking what has worked for centuries, and contextualising it for the modern day. “The philosophy of our firm is to draw inferences from the vernacular, and use modern structural systems so that it can serve the user in multiple ways,” explains Sachin Rastogi, director and principal architect of ZED Lab. “So one has to really understand the user, and the needs of the client, rather enforce their own architectural vision on a project.”
The building is blanketed in a brick-toned concrete jali; one that creates a physical barrier without compromising on the view, and also serves the additional function of climate-control. “There are extreme weather changes, diurnally and also seasonally,” Rastogi explains, “and the only thing that can provide comfort is thermal mass.” Brick and concrete—two materials that are capable of absorbing tremendous amounts of heat, were an obvious material choice. They also happen to be native to the region, easily available and efficient to produce in terms of cost and energy. “We were also looking for something with a permanent finish, that you don’t have to spend too much money to maintain,” he adds. “Brick and concrete have been a staple in educational architecture for decades, for that very reason.” – Avantika Shankar
The Lalit Suri Hospitality Institute Teaches Functional Sustainability
The Lalit Suri Hospitality Institute in Faridabad, NCR, is a study in legacy. The institute, which trains students who will go on to work at one of The Lalit Suri Hospitality Group’s hotels, encompasses a 2,50,000-square-feet building carefully embedded in 5 acres of untouched forested terrain. Architecture firm Morphogenesis, founded by Manit and Sonali Rastogi, designed the structure to cohabit with nature—a philosophy that they express with the acronym ‘SOUL.’ “It means sustainable, optimised, unique, and liveable,” explains founding partner Sonali. “Educational institutions especially lend themselves to this philosophy.”
The façade of the building moves back and forth with the edge of the forest, allowing the trees to shade the building and create a sort of microclimate in the area. Morphogenesis was also careful to design the building’s open corridors to face the foliage—so that the need for air-conditioning was minimised, and students could feel like they were truly cohabiting with nature. Recreational spaces are placed on the ground floor, bordered by exposed brick columns and shaded by the higher storeys that surround them, but otherwise open to the elements. Jalis and jharokha—architectural elements native to north India and have been used as climate control features for centuries—the perforated façade optimises the building’s access to breeze, shade and natural light. “When you’re trying to design a budgeted project, which is what most educational institutions are, then it isn’t just about the building cost, but the operating cost,” Sonali adds, “So if you make a comfortable college which is 25% air conditioned, versus one that is 100% air conditioned, then it is obviously a win-win.” – Avantika Shankar
