HCPDPM designs extension to Kahn's iconic Indian Institute of Management Campus
HCP Design and Project Management Pvt. Ltd. won this commission through a nationwide competition held in 1999. The client's brief sought a new and independent 39 acre campus which could extend the vision of the old campus designed by Louis Kahn.
A host of facilities needed to be incorporated in the new development, including an International Management Development Centre, dormitories, classrooms, married students' quarters, VIP suites, guestrooms, administrative facilities, Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship, sports facilities, kitchen, dining and other attendant facilities.
HCPDPM's challenge lay in designing a campus which could function and be read as an independent entity while remaining an inseparable component of an integrated development. Accordingly, the new campus deliberately attempts to make references to the old campus and provide continuities with it.
Distinguishing aspects of the old campus such as the location of buildings, their configurations and connections, the diagonal geometries of the dormitories, the deployment of semi-circular stairs and turrets, compositions incorporating abstract forms, large plain surfaces and the overall sense of restraint informed the design of the new campus.
Set out on an axis with the old campus, the principal spine of the new campus comprises a generous double-height raised gallery that serves the classroom and seminar blocks. To its south is a grid of dormitories that adopt Kahn's diagonal grid and to the north is located another wing of academic, conference and catering spaces.
Although the new campus has a separate access and exit and functions independently from the old campus, the two are connected by an underpass which houses an exhibition of Kahn's campus. This underpass is the pivot of the comprehensive development and is sensitively located to not only connect the two campuses but also to bind them together.
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