Architecture For The People

The school is a fresh breeze of assurance in times of global influences set within a rural context responsibly addressing its locale, context and inhabitants.

- Meghna Mehta

Set within a secluded stretch of land outside Kalkeri Village, Kalkeri Sangeet Vidyalaya is a free school with a strong emphasis on the performing arts. The existing built structures on the campus are simple and instinctively disposed, mostly made out of bamboo, straw and mud. The aim of our project was to design a library and learning centre, which could be a dialogue between formal/informal, existing/new and low-cost/high-tech. ‘Technos’ (Technique – of brickwork, plaster, structural design)) became strategic in providing spatial and architectural quality within strict constraints.

The intent was also to provide a precedent that could be adopted for future interventions within this landscape, in terms of how vibrant, simple structures planned around open common areas could solve functional requirements as well as be versatile ‘life spaces’.

Kumar La Noce is a sum of two different cultures and geographical origins and their work arises from this friction/dichotomy.

This Indo-Italian studio set up by Bhavana Kumar and Nicola La Noce, has worked on projects in various scales including Architecture, art installations, interior architecture and Master plan since its inception in 2012. Their work is based on a typological understanding of space and a need to create evocative spaces informed by pragmatism, culture and collective memory.