The Centre for Environment Education in Ahmedabad is an institute founded with a mandate to further environmental education by the Government of India. While CEE centres are spread all across India, the one at Ahmedabad, which is the headquarters, is about 32 years old now. Established in 1984, this building has been designed by architect Neelkanth Chhaya, former dean of CEPT university, when he was still a young architect. Spread over a site of about 14 acres, the CEE-Ahmedabad campus houses several functions catering to the programs of sustainability and environmental education.
It was imperative for the building for environment education must itself be an instrument of such learning. It is unfortunate that there exists hardly any literature on its own website about the architecture of the place itself, which is a sensitive as well as a sustainable response to the site. Built on a tekra - a mound in the north of the city - the structure follows the contours while embracing the natural landscape. Using the opportunity of the undulating site to create a variety of experiences, the building is almost a map of its landscape.
It was imperative for the building for environment education must itself be an instrument of such learning. It is unfortunate that there exists hardly any literature on its own website about the architecture of the place itself, which is a sensitive as well as a sustainable response to the site. Built on a tekra - a mound in the north of the city - the structure follows the contours while embracing the natural landscape. Using the opportunity of the undulating site to create a variety of experiences, the building is almost a map of its landscape.
Simple square cubic spaces nested within each other enclose spaces in varying degrees of openness. Responding appropriately to the climate, the building offers enough release spaces into its heavily landscaped outdoor, which is never too warm under the thick canopy of trees. The multiple terraces under the tree cover are seemingly more habitable than the inside. They give different degrees of privacy and proximity with people. Three strategic sections give rise to distinct experiences:
1. Building fully / partially under the ground
2. Building leveled with the ground
3. Terracing the ground.
In each of the above cases, a unique relationship is established with the site. All blocks are entered differently. The building responds to site topography both outside and within. The sections of the inside are as dynamic as the outside creating difference in volume and light conditions. The complex becomes the framework for landscape in allowing trees and natural vegetation to grow on it. Different terraces are architecturally tied up using pergola pavilions. The embeddedness of the building thus releases into the air very subtly, almost like reducing itself to the bare branches of the overall form. The building becomes the new extended (?) ground for growth and movement. The inside and outside fold into each other in unique ways opening you up in new directions. Kachha and paved pathways transition into each other without interrupting movement.
This building is rhizomatic - the productive output of a mind filled with equal amount of clarity and confusion. It is hard to draw a clear straightforward diagram of the complex. At once Chhaya has folded in numerous concepts from regional architectural history together into the building. The tectonics of stepped wells, the Sarkhej terraces, Doshi's subterranean buildings, Correa's subtended heights (Gandhi ashram), Corbusier's exposed structural elements, and above all, the timeless forms of courtyards, the journeying through a forest making the building a process of discovery, the continuous Centering and decentering of focus are ideas enmeshed in a manner quite complex in this building. People emerge out of the building as if coming out of a cave. Occupying this building is like entering a red crafted mountain. The chaityas and viharas collect to a common courtyard and overlook large trees and vegetation. One can only imagine the beauty that this building would behold in the monsoon.
1. Building fully / partially under the ground
2. Building leveled with the ground
3. Terracing the ground.
In each of the above cases, a unique relationship is established with the site. All blocks are entered differently. The building responds to site topography both outside and within. The sections of the inside are as dynamic as the outside creating difference in volume and light conditions. The complex becomes the framework for landscape in allowing trees and natural vegetation to grow on it. Different terraces are architecturally tied up using pergola pavilions. The embeddedness of the building thus releases into the air very subtly, almost like reducing itself to the bare branches of the overall form. The building becomes the new extended (?) ground for growth and movement. The inside and outside fold into each other in unique ways opening you up in new directions. Kachha and paved pathways transition into each other without interrupting movement.
This building is rhizomatic - the productive output of a mind filled with equal amount of clarity and confusion. It is hard to draw a clear straightforward diagram of the complex. At once Chhaya has folded in numerous concepts from regional architectural history together into the building. The tectonics of stepped wells, the Sarkhej terraces, Doshi's subterranean buildings, Correa's subtended heights (Gandhi ashram), Corbusier's exposed structural elements, and above all, the timeless forms of courtyards, the journeying through a forest making the building a process of discovery, the continuous Centering and decentering of focus are ideas enmeshed in a manner quite complex in this building. People emerge out of the building as if coming out of a cave. Occupying this building is like entering a red crafted mountain. The chaityas and viharas collect to a common courtyard and overlook large trees and vegetation. One can only imagine the beauty that this building would behold in the monsoon.
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