School for Planning and Architecture, New Delhi

SPA, School for Planning and Architecture, New Delhi

Education today is become more coherently integrated in every day life and a quest to benefit from the interdisciplinary exchange of knowledge and experience. Especially the School for Planning and Architecture in a metropolis like New Delhi has the need to utilize a vital fringe of urban life to the benefit of the education in their creative fields. In our understanding, the needed interdisciplinary exchange can be provided best in an intense and dense campus setting with urban qualities enabling an open minded individual development.

The well connected site, located in one of New Delhi`s most outstanding natural settings, provides a unique opportunity to combine this vital urban experience with a spectacular natural environment. This natural environment influences the site on macroscopic as well as microscopic levels. On a broader scale, the site provides an extensive natural recreation area with the Delhi Ridge as a conglomerate which continues into the actual site itself. On a smaller scale, this continuation provides a unique condition on the site, the natural “canyon”. This canyon plays a major role in the site layout as it provides a unique recreation and community area and creates the identity of the S.P.A. - the urban campus in nature.

To achieve this urban intensity for the new campus, the buildings are placed proximal to each other, providing convenient access to all facilities and to each other. The various functions and activities are juxtaposed so that the different departments maintain a comfortable proximity to the common facilities as well as the housing. In the same way the landscape is interlocked with the buildings, providing residential parks, urban squares or the central nature area, the canyon.

The ground floor of the new S.P.A. Campus is an important feature of the project. This ground level not only provides access to all buildings, it is a sequence of open and inside space, functions, landscapes, activities and atmospheres, it is the space of interaction and exchange, it is an urban landscape of programs and activities. To enhance this exchange further, the outside space between the buildings is covered by an open sun screen which continues the internal space and connects the autonomies buildings.