25: Designing educational institutions with Bijoy Ramachandran

Louis Kahn once said, "A great building must begin with the immeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed, and in the end must be unmeasured." And what great opportunity to understand architecture in the area of education where i believe these thoughts converge. Today I have Bijoy Ramachandran with us on Audiogyan. Bijoy Ramachandran & Sunitha Kondur are co-fouders of Hundredhands. It is a multidisciplinary design studio based in Bangalore. Their work draws on a keen sense of the urban context by probing questions of scale, character, spatial and visual impact, and remaking of the public domain. Hundredhands has designed a lot of public and educational institutions. Nalanda University in Bihar, Bangalore International center, Neev Acadamemy, St. Andrews School & CMR University in Bangalore.. to name a few. We will try and understand thoughts while designing or architecting educational institutions with Bijoy today.

Which out of the 5 sense is the most critical while designing an education institute? Why? What according to you should be the key characteristics of an educational institute?

In India and most parts of the Indian subcontinent we always had a Guru Shishya Parampara type teaching. So limited students under a tree may be? Was there any particular architecture which became a milestone for this institutionalised education system?

What is the thought behind making the teacher or a professor stand on platform? Is it just about visibility or something more at work psychologically?

When you design institutional projects, what are the critical issues / elements you have to consider / prioritise? What are the 'PRINCIPLES'?

In one of your talks you speak about change or time as an important aspect of constructing an architecture. Can you point any nuanced patterns seen in educational institutions which handle batches and batches of students every year; essentially architecture ageing with time but giving brith to new people in the society

What can be a big difference while designing a school versus designing a college. Looking at age of children and teenagers? How do you consider the diverse user-groups when you design an institution? - From the youngest to the oldest and from learning to play? Do people especially students or small children use the space differently than you envision?

How much of the environment affects learning? How do you create that one? Can we take Neev acadamey for example?

Apart from architecture, which other expertise do you need in order to design a good institutional building?

How do you visualise educational institutes 20 years from now?