Virendra K Girdhar
architect
EDUCATIONAL
Downtown Manhattan School for Business Careers
For Gruzen and Partners
New York
The school offering college and career oriented programme for 2500 students is located on a triangular site in revitalized civic center in Downtown Manhattan.
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The Triangular plan with circular towers housing building services as its corners provided an ideal / natural solution to the site located adjoining Brooklyn Bridge.
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The circular towers architecturally provide dramatic contrast to the other wise simple plan.
The basic classrooms are rectangular and have been located at the perimeter on all the floors and a large triangular space in the middle houses auditorium on ground floor, library on the first floor, canteen on second floor and gymnasium on the third floor. The top floor is reserved for the mechanical / environmental systems.
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The interior of the building has exposed circular diffuser ducts for ease of maintenance.
York College
For Gruzen and Partners
New York
The campus was designed as a mega structure for 6000 students on a compact (600ft x 600ft) site around a mall or a visual aids an access spine as replacement for campus green, with academic spaces i.e classrooms, labs etc on one side of the mall and lecture halls, library offices etc on the other side.
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Site area 600ft x 600ft super block in Jamaica, Queens Borough, bounded by high level noise emanating major traffic routes on the east, west and south and the Long Island railroad on the north.
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Indoor campus, created around multi level 450 foot long sky lit pedestrian spine, serving as a round the dock gathering socializing, educational and eating place for York students who prefer college environment to home. It serves as an encounter, meeting and conversational hall.
Educational: the loft like structure on one side of the spine, contains labs, classrooms and faculty offices, With in the constraints of exit corridors and laboratory services chases, all spaces can be easily restructured in size and function to meet inevitable program changes. The western side of the mall serves as a billboard / display case for the academic departments selling of educational wares. The eastern side is 400 foot visual reminder that the library is the heart of an educational institution.
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Aesthetic and environmental: the mall in the middle with its movement of people by escalator, bridges and overhanging terraces form a kinetic background to daily college life. Landscaping is used to funnel academic and community traffic to provide visual repose along the wall, and to isolate the users from the traffic of the surrounding streets. The plaza on New York Boulevard serves as an outdoor amphitheatre for the community and the college
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Built up area : 4,50,000.00sft
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KIMS
Bangalore
Institute of Finance and International Management
Bangalore
‘All the world is a stage’ penned the BARD.
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The Institute of Finance and International Management aims at helping the actors on this world stage to take a step up into the realms of managing this stage.
The brief from the clients was to come up with a built form that was a campus within a building rather than a building on a campus, expressing a corporate out look in keeping with its location at the electronic city rather than an institutional character.
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The site being located at a junction of three roads and with an existing grand old tree at the corner inspired an arrival plaza in the form of an open air theatre. The angular nature of the site dictated the multifaceted angular built form. The porous character of the compound and gate suggest the osmotic nature of a students mind.
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The Jaisalmer stone was selected for its down to earth visual appeal and the polished black granite seamlessly becoming black reflective glass for its infinitesimal character. Thus the building appears to have sprung up from the earth yearning to reach the skies representing the aspirations of young minds to reach the highest echelons of managing life.
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On entering the portals, a wide flight of stairs perceptively narrowing down at the top suggests the pyramidal nature of life where few reach the top.At the core (court) of the space, the tree sings a soliloquy to the fountain head of knowledge, its pink blooms flowering out into streaks of magenta on the railings and walls telling tales of the colourful streaks inside the drabbest appearing management cadres. On the promontory overhanging the waterbody is to come a sculpture of a successful man(ager) his success being reflected in his relaxed attitude being at peace with himself and the lonesomeness at the top.
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Phase 1 (Basement, GF and FF)
Site area: 6098m2
Built area : 1950m2
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Material: RCC frame, block walls with dry cladding in Jaisalmer yellow and polish.
Flooring in: Jaisalmer, Tandur, Broken china mosaic / wood
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Phase II (Terrace floor)
Built area:496m2
Materials: Steel space frame, Galvalume sheet roof and exterior cladding, prefab light weight panel walls
Floor: vitrified tiles