Pondicherry University

Overview

The main campus of the University on East Coast road is spread in an area of 800 acres with a 100 acres barren land placed within this. It was decided to develop this area as the Silver Jubilee Campus with about twenty departments. Pondicherry University called for a nationwide competition for design in which Creators Architects participated. Creators Architects scheme included with not just a building plan but presented the master plan, the urban guidelines, the expansion plan with a view of what to be achieved aiming the future.

Concept

The hot and humid climate of Pondicherry and the coastal line which experiences high temperature and heavy rainfalls in retreating monsoons played a vital role in the concept of the design. Design scheme presented was sensitive towards the overall master plan, elevation guidelines, passive climatic means, and student comfort with an eye towards the movement pattern within the campus, how the services going to run, rainwater harvesting, etc. The buildings were conceptualized as plug and play system with all the amenities required. There was characterisation in the master plan and the buildings that went hand in hand. The concept entails urban planning principles, expandable services planning, movement and service corridors and open space positions that shall set the canvas for growing needs of the university.

Design

Main Campus

Campus planning principles took into account the movement of the students as well as the volume of the students. Concentric circular planning provided an evenly distributed built area ratio throughout the square piece of land and the geometry allowed proper management of services and movement. It was estimated that not less than 4000 students will have their footprints on the campus on an everyday basis. Their requirements amounted to shaded zones, car parking, bicycle parking, amenities, indoor and outdoor spaces.

The inner circle catered to the administration providing the main entrance of the buildings and interconnection through the central landscape. The outer circle was shaped for the students with parking lots, services feeds and annex block for future expansion which also admitted covered bicycle pathways lined by shady trees, ring system of ramps around the campus to have an easy flow of services and to take care of the electricity, rainwater management, sewerage and water supply systems.

The design was made in such a manner that any building could come up and tap into the existing network and start functioning. The central part at the center of the campus was kept open to be covered by vegetation and in the future to have the solar and wind energy installations. Combined with gardens, walks, and sculptures, this area was planned to be the social hub with nature oriented values.

The master planning also involved a lot of understanding of the climate, topography, students their comfort zones. It instigates immediately the values of easy, flexible, sustainable and green infrastructure.

Buildings

Climate played a key role in the designing of the buildings. Initially, the brief was that all the buildings will not be fitted with ACs. So the prime concern was that the students need to feel comfortable as Pondicherry experiences very high temperatures during the middays. The factors considered in basic designing were wind movement, the balance of heat and shade, drawing the air out through the corridor which in turn drew air out from the classrooms thus resulting in ventilated spaces of air giving a cooling effect.

The buildings were of various sizes with partial linear structures. All buildings were designed with passive cooling techniques like courtyard effect and solar chimney to create a natural wind draft. the path was extensively studied to curtain direct heat gain indoors. The terraces were lined with reflective broken China that curtailed of gaining heat from the top. For the front, the louvers were installed to block the direct sunlight but maximizing the intake of the daylight. This was very helpful as they acted as a protection from the rains during the long monsoon season of Pondicherry. The rainwater from the terrace was also channelized using open down takes and was immediately taken into the drains which were part of the connected network that harvests the rainwater as it got collected.

So overall all the buildings follow a combination of passive and active principles that defined its character towards sustainability. The buildings qualified for GRIHA (which came into existence much later) with a 4.0 star rating in terms of energy consumption.

Even today these induced force and the lay off spaces inside the buildings does not make one feel the heat at all and it is pretty breezy inside allowing very temperate conditions for student learning.