Distinctly identifiable by its stepped terraces and red striated facade, the Crescent School of Architecture occupies a relatively small lot of the 60-acre university campus, in Vandalur, Chennai. The project brief envisioned studio spaces along with lecture halls and administration areas – which we chose to augment with necessary ‘de-programmed’ spaces for collective working and gathering. This allowed for the exploration of redefining not only the nature of spaces found in an architecture school but also offering us the possibility to inform the future pedagogic program that it could accommodate. Typically, a school would house endless corridors with rooms on either side. Spaces offering opportunity for discussions and chance encounter is severely limited, which in turn confines its users to following a dreary routine.

Overturning this notion of conventional space-making in an institution by replacing it with spaces that can have transformative pedagogical implications becomes imperative; wherein collective creation is encouraged within the institution’s pedagogic program, by explicitly offering spaces that urge for learning outside of the confines of the classroom. With a program that is two-fold in nature, both extroverted and introverted, any architecture school requires spaces that allow its users to work in multiple ways. The ideal school should allow for an open-ended program. Through means of an unconventional spatial method, our architecture school presents its users with various options for inhabitation and use.