How architecture makes this school homely
DREAM STRUCTURE: The school for rehabilitated children in Annasandrapalya, Airport Road
The entire school structure revolves around the courtyard, giving it the look of an open school.
Exposed bricks, stones and coloured cement tiles are used. They are easy to maintain.
Exposed bricks require no plastering and painting.
The multi-use hall and the open halls on the terrace allow optimum use of space. Many activities can be conducted here.
There is a hangout place for children.
It has minimum number of steps so that the children find it easy to move up and down.
Classrooms are not identical in size and shape.
Visit the architect's websites www.goodearthhomes.net or www.houseofconsultants.com.
* * *
EXPOSED BRICKS, a terrace with bright Mangalore tiles, a hall with a thatched roof attached to the main structure and a large stretch of land in front of it, make the "Kanasina Shale" or the Dream School. It is located at Annasandrapalya, next to the Association for Promoting Social Action (APSA), an NGO working for street and working children.
The entrance has two well-crafted wooden pillars, and a brightly polished door of pinewood opens into the ground floor of the school. The floor has an open courtyard decorated with clay models and two classrooms of varying sizes, a tiny room dumped with colours, clay, trumpets, drums, banners, knick-knacks of all kinds, a laboratory and a teachers' room. The ground floor also houses an amphitheatre. Attached to it is a semi-enclosed space, called "Inchara," where art classes are conducted.
In the first floor, there are two classrooms each of 18 x 18 size and a computer lab of 23 x 23 size. Climb a few more steps, you enter the terrace, which has got two open halls with Mangalore tiled roofs.
Freshness to teaching
"Schools should have both formal and informal learning spaces. Learning need not necessarily take place within the four walls of a classroom. On a bright day the students here are taught at the terrace or the amphitheatre, bringing in some kind of freshness to teaching. Thus, creative use of informal spaces can enhance student learning experience," says P. Lakshapathi, Executive Director, APSA, which runs the school.
The favourite hangout for students is the Inchara. Here, they do their clay modelling, painting, sculpting under the cool shade of a huge tree. They rehearse for dramas/street plays, or they sing, dance, sleep or just hang around doing nothing.
The children who are rehabilitated here are street and working children or children of migrant labourers. They are comfortable in open spaces that are non-threatening and non-institutional. "That is what they need at least in the first few years of their transitory period," he says.
Mr. Lakshapathi also says that to make the internal space more enjoyable to the children, the open courtyard is filled with water and several kinds of fish for a few months. Paper boats are let into the water. You also have myriad coloured floating candles which, when lit, give a vibrant and joyous look to the inner environs of the school. "We also intend to grow lotuses," he says.
Creativity needed
APSA believes that the architecture of every school should be altered depending on the field of education it specialises in and the kind of students it caters for. Each school should get creative, and the learning environment should be exciting to the teachers and the students. "The benefits of both the internal and external environment should be merged to enrich the learning experience," says Kshitij Urs, Managing Director of APSA.
The architecture for the Rs. 22-lah Kanasina Shale is by Jeeth Iype. He says educational architecture is an upcoming field in our country. More experiments in the field is done in the private sector than in the public sector.
In India, the designing of government schools is by the PWD engineers and they employ no architects. "So you have dull and uninspiring schools."
"It (Kanasina Shale) is an open sort of school, as the entire school revolves around a small courtyard. There are lots of variation. Certain classes are bigger while the others are not," Mr. Iype says.
The teachers use movable boards of varied shapes like that of an apple or an elephant. The children are made to sit on carpets, and the walls are painted with bright colours by the children themselves. Posters, toys, paintings made by them are used to make the classroom welcoming. The children have been consulted at all stages of its evolution, Mr. Iype says.
"A school should be a true reflection of its local environs, its culture, architecture and should be need-based. A school in each region should be unique and locally adaptable. Moreover, the locally available materials should be used for building." Mr. Iype is inspired by Laurie Baker, the eco-friendly architect. Mr. Iype can contacted at: House Of Consultants, E004, Terrace Garden Apartments, II Main Road, Banashankari III Stage, Bangalore-85, Ph: 26725325/ 26727239, Mobile: 9844129762.
R.S. RANJEETHA URS
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Property Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Hyderabad
Kochi
