HARVEE SCHOOL , COIMBATORE

Quoting Frank Gehry - “Architecture and any art can transform a person even save someone. It can for children- for anyone. It still does for me.” 

Designing a school is always exciting and challenging at the same time, since it deals with the energy of children of different age groups, from nursery kids to adolescent teens. With age-specific physical and psychological needs comes a great responsibility in configuring spaces. Experiential layer plays a major role in this design, integrating spaces in school with relation to the way children have used and experienced spaces till now.

The school is designed in a way that it skillfully integrates the needs and curiosities that are to be met - to allow the young child to try and catch a ray of sunlight in their hands, for the older children to have space for studying alone or in a group with spaces for individual teaching also provided.

The access to the school is through an 'arched entry' with an inclined wall adjacent to it, accentuating the overall meticulously designed organic structure. The amphitheatre is fabricated in a curvilinear style along the span of the perforated wall in the east, which doubles as both prayer and gathering space. The entry leads to the courtyard, which is greeted by a flight of stairs sculpturally spiraling to the floors above. The classrooms are arranged along the periphery with arching or curved fenestrations that challenge archetype designs allowing ample sunlight into the classrooms in addition to the perforated wall to the east.The mud wall finish inside the classrooms,exposed brick and concrete with jali patterns in the elevation, add an earthy touch to the bright colours that are incorporated in the interiors of the building to cheer up the mood and to subjectively taper the otherwise voluminous structure. The flooring integrates materials such as dirty Kota, Kota, white marble and kadappa allowing for flowing patterns that are designed in the entry counting to the already existing organic composition. 

The upper floors, offset and project outwards, each along a different curve, adding layers to the organic fabric of the structure. The central court has an informal seating space, with varied levels of seating for the users, with the students being able to be monitored by the teachers. The introverted planning helps in provision of security with the central courtyard helping in facilitating a visual connection in the vertical aspect  to monitor the entire space.