Innovative Eco-School Designed To Remove Air Pollution
[Sept. 2, 2020: Joseph Shavit]
This 'Forest School' design was the winning entry for a competition held to create a new educational facility in Pune, a city in western India.
The design comes from architecture studio Nudes who specialise in blending social, cultural and environmental aspects in a building.
The city of Pune has witnessed dramatic urban growth as well as worsening air quality in the last decade. The level of pollutants regularly exceeds both Indian standards and World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines.
The design of the 'Forest School' tackles this problem. The vertical garden serves to purify the air from pollutants and chemicals and turn carbon dioxide into oxygen.
‘Forest’ comprises two ‘green’ cylindrical volumes brought together by an ‘infinity’ or 8-shaped rooftop loop track. Occupying a site of approximately 2.5 acres, the school building occupies the front end of a rectangular linear plot with an open space created for play and sport towards the rear. The entire built-up construction of the school is approximately 11,612 sqm and houses learning environments from early childhood education to Grade 12.
The ‘live’ skin of the curved elevation is defined by a series of uniform protrusions and the lush vegetation that occupies them. This element of the project has been designed to create breathers and buffer zones that would improve air quality and overall well-being of the students. These external ‘green’ spaces can be serviced and maintained by a peripheral service track accessible from both landing and mid-landing levels on every floor by horticulturists.
The Forest is conceptualised to be an institution that promotes hands-on learning, green learning opportunities, networked communities, experimental learning with improvement in air quality and student health. It also works towards passive cooling, sensitivity towards climate change and global warming and garnering social responsibilities.
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