In India out of ten one student is suffering from permanent or partial blindness. The difficulty of this student is to adapt to this world in spite of their visual impairment to identify spaces on their own. This School in Gandhinagar a city in Gujarat in the northwest of India is done by SeaLab Studio, ‘School for Blind and Visually Impaired Children” is done especially for students in remote villages and teachers who are looking for an opportunity to help them educate. The school is completely an architectural experiment that incorporates materials, textures, and also human senses that play a major role in defining the spaces which incorporate touch, smell, hearing, and rays of vision. The density of each gave rise to each space and its adjoining areas.
This structure is a play of light and shadow which adjoins different colours and their relevance. A lot of study has been done before executing the project. Initially, this was a primary school functioning in an existing building in which the 1st floor was used as classrooms and additional activities and the ground floor as dormitories which could only accommodate a few students (12 students had to share each dorm room).
This structure is a play of light and shadow which adjoins different colours and their relevance. A lot of study has been done before executing the project. Initially, this was a primary school functioning in an existing building in which the 1st floor was used as classrooms and additional activities and the ground floor as dormitories which could only accommodate a few students (12 students had to share each dorm room).
Anand wanted this design to be a solution for every student’s need, so to understand every need and complication he had to foresee he spent more time with kids.
Within The Walls
The building, adorned with white walls and airy courtyards, is designed while navigating the four senses – smell, vision, touch, and sound. Keeping this in mind he incorporated materials, colour, and landscape accordingly.
The new design of the School is centralised with a courtyard that allows children to play, perform, and for other activities, this courtyard is elongated into 10 classrooms connected with additional facilities, such as the music room and the meeting room whose functions determine their various shapes, sizes, and lighting qualities passages.
Each classroom is connected to green pockets to facilitate enough greenery and also the volumes are defined to control the extreme heat of Gujarat. All these spaces are done with five types of plasters and textures such as the concrete with a semicircle motif on the walls of the inner court. This has been done to identify each space by touching the walls. Also, widths of heights range each passage.
Each classroom, courtyard, and passage in the school is marked and written in Braille on the walls. For another navigation, Anand made use of hearing and light intensity in passages because students will have difficulty with light so all the passages are filtered accordingly.
Hearing – Also changing the volumes and heights of each room creates different echoes in different spaces this can also be used as another technique to identify the same. This has been achieved by making the entrance area long and wide and as we go inside the opposite edge being small and short. This contrast produces echoes inside the rooms and passages
Vision – Another element given importance is colour which can be used with students with lower vision. This has been achieved by making doors and furniture with different bright and vibrant colours for classrooms, toilets, etc.
Smell – Additionally, to make more use of other techniques to differentiate spaces the architect also made use of the sense of smell by planting aromatic flowers growing in the small court connecting the classrooms and walkways and various areas of the entrance to understand the area more definitely.
https://volzero.com/articles/view/school-for-the-blind-and-visually-impaired-children-by-sealab
Sustainable haven Along the walls
There are 5 special classrooms with 7 other classrooms with individual courtyards in the school. All the shapes of rooms and the planning and size of rooms have been executed in how the students would use them. All the furniture is arranged accordingly making it student-friendly and along with their needs and comfort.
Also the usage of various materials like Kota stone gives importance to locally available materials by distinguishing them with smooth and rough surfaces in different areas. as well as by planting more than 1000 plants of 37 different varieties.
A traditional rainwater harvesting well called Khambhati Kuva (Percolation well) has also been found underground. The well with a depth of 10 feet and a depth of 30 feet, is designed to collect rainwater and recharge the ground. This well can store 40,000 to 60,000 litres of water in an hour.
Section showing roof lines of the School_©https://art4d.com/en/2022/09/school-for-blind-and-visually-impaired-children
There is more to this building apart from the architectural gimmicks, details, and execution. This can be a major example for future design to come by giving importance to all categories of people to satisfy their needs and comfort. Also, we can see the dedication of every person involved in this project and how its final product is executed finely giving importance to every fine detail of the design.
Citations:
Websites referred for data and information
- https://volzero.com/articles/view/school-for-the-blind-and-visually-impaired-children-by-sealab
- https://sea-lab.org/filter/sealab/updates-1
- https://art4d.com/en/2022/09/school-for-blind-and-visually-impaired-children
- https://www.thebetterindia.com/340084/gujarat-school-for-the-blind-and-visually-impaired-inclusive-design-architecture-by-anand-sonecha-sealabs/#google_vignette
- https://www.archdaily.com/984721/school-for-blind-and-visually-impaired-children-sealab
