BILLABONG international high school in Baroda was designed with a basic idea of making an institutional building free from the feel of a stereotypical school. A school is said to be the second home of any student, and keeping this in mind, we designed the building in such a way that a child never feels overpowered by the building. At any given place in the entire premise, the child should have abundant natural light, natural ventilation and greenery around him. We feel that this connectivity to the nature would enhance the growth of the young minds in the school.
“The clients wanted the school to have a colourful exterior as well as interior. But we stuck to the idea of using earthy tones on the exterior, thus blending it with the natural surroundings around it and giving lively and colourful tones in the classrooms.” Some bright colours are used with the combination of exposed RCC panels to accentuate certain areas in the building.
A lawn area and playground is in the forefront of the entire area, thus giving a feel of an open campus. It also acts as a filter between the main road and the school building. The 20,600 Sq. Ft of school building is divided into 4 blocks, wherein the front block works as the administrative block, and other 3 are the school blocks. There is a huge open courtyard in the centre of the blocks, thus giving adamant natural light and ventilation to all class rooms around it. It also acts as a secondary play area and an open theatre for the students.
The administrative block is in the forefront, and acts as a welcome area of the school. Placed near the entrance, it houses all staff offices and reception. The glass facade of the administrative block makes a bold statement and gives an impact to the entire building along with giving natural light and increased visibility to all the offices housed there. One can get a clear view of the entire playground as well as the school building behind it. Parent teacher meetings are always held in the administrative block thus, it never disturbs the other areas of the school.
The other 3 blocks include 2 blocks of 21 class rooms each and the third block which secludes from the classrooms, houses the toilets, science labs and computer labs. The class blocks have an open ground on one side and a courtyard on the other, thus enabling good cross ventilation.
Apart from the architecture planning, another driving design factor was the intelligent amalgamation of the green landscape and the school bldg. The bldg is surrounded with lush green lawns on 3 three sides and a swimming pool on one side. The swimming pool is in the east, thus the strong afternoon sunlight does not fall on it, and this in turn helps in keeping the area cooler.
There are 4 ramp entrances for the school building. The entrances lead to the 10’ wide corridors. The corridors face an OTS, with palm trees and benches around it, thus giving natural light and enabling echo reduction in all classrooms.
All classrooms have huge window openings and one wall of each class is coloured in a bright tone, with a huge graphic panel on it.The ergonomically designed modular furniture in each class matches with the bright coloured wall.The otherwise simplistic labs, have large French windows for natural light. Storage spaces are included in the architecture planning itself thus giving a cleaner and spacious look.
Project Fact file
- Client’s Name – BILLABONG international high school
- Built-up Area – 20,600 Ft.
- Design Team – Dipen Gada, Pratik Siddhpura, Jiten Tosar
- Site Coordinator – Chetan Builders