A 21st century learning space, named Pupil Tree Academy in Bellary, Karnataka, exemplifies how vernacular architecture can transform our educational spaces.
In the quest for that illusive perfect design for a school, the children and the teachers are often forgotten. The Centre for Vernacular Architecture aims to build “sensitive and sensible, culturally relevant buildings”. This chain of thought has resulted in a building that does not stand out but instead merges into its surroundings.
R.L. Kumar, the man who, as he puts it in his CV, believes that a building, when you see it, should have a meaningful effect on you and one that continues to stay with you. That is exactly what he has done at Pupil Tree, with the use of various materials and techniques like random rubble and cob walls.
We see a free-flowing and well spread cluster of small buildings and not just one big box with rooms stuffed in it. The clear application of principles is apparent and obvious in this school in many ways. The first instance of it is the way it has been built or rather hand-crafted. The masons and artisans have done a splendid job and have thus given shape to a fine piece of art. Each wall is a witness to the ownership the workmen have over their tools and the control they have on their resources.
This is a structure that opens our eyes to a whole new meaning of the word ‘ambulation’ and the way Kumar sees it. It shines in every little detail, starting from the arches, the thatched roof, the water body in the courtyard of the office block to the oxide flooring in the dance halls and the niches in the random rubble. Maybe this is really what is considered out-of-the-box thinking. It is a proof that nature is not just something we enjoy looking at from a window.
When Laurie Baker, an architect who pioneered vernacular sustainable eco-friendly architecture in India, used the term ‘artistic environment’ when talking about educational spaces, he didn’t mean pretty facades or furniture. He meant that the walls, the roof, the windows and the floors of a school building should be well designed as they are the “containers of space”. The introduction of elements of surprise and also those of relief became essential while conceiving the idea of this school.
