In Neemrana, the NIIT University looks to medieval architectural practices for its contemporary buildings.
The pools of water are nothing more than ephemeral mirages, the hot sand has burnt through the thin soles of my footwear, and though it’s still an hour to noon, the sun is a raging ball of fire above the Aravallis. Here, in Neemrana, midway between Delhi and Jaipur, nothing more than a pitstop for tea and a bite really, a residential university is taking shape. Nothing unusual about that, even if it is NIIT that is setting it up — India is, after all, a knowledge society — but for the fact that, curriculum and educational excellence aside, it is experimenting with a building design that, far from being futuristic, is a throwback to the past. In a manner of speaking, of course.
Gathered at the site, phase one of which will be commissioned in September, are architects, civil engineers, landscapists, the pro-chancellor and others associated with the project, all of them thoughtfully in hats to protect them from the sun, which they will exchange for hard hats once we are actually inside the buildings. It is difficult to imagine that the 40-plus degrees that we’re experiencing will come down to about 27 degrees in the campus because of the network of earth-air tunnels that are being laid like an underground maze more suited to an espionage thriller than a university.
In any case, buildings + people = a heat island by my reckoning, but not according to green architect Vinod Gupta of Space Design Consultants (though the masterplan was prepared by YRM of London). “A heat island is a Western concept,” Gupta snaps. Instead, he believes that the earth tunnels — 1.6 km of which have already been laid, though by the time the whole university is complete, they would measure 16 km — and the compact architecture that he has proscribed, as traditionally followed in the state, “will create shade, and its own micro-climate” that will make the environment cooler rather than hotter.
But before I meet Gupta, the pro-chancellor, Rajendra Pawar, has enthusiastically shared the plans about the concept that has shaped the idea of the university. Taking a cue from the largely walled cities of Rajasthan, and Jaisalmer in particular — a city all architects study as a model of desert architecture — Pawar says they decided to incorporate certain traditional ideas in what will be modern buildings. These include, besides building “compact structures to create shadows” — which Gupta says he had to resolve just how close the buildings should be to each other — a propensity to creating “frequent courtyards” — another traditional device architects often experiment with in, especially, north India — and “a spine as a walkway or pedestrian promenade”.
The “spine” is interesting, a central hub for the university that, Pawar thinks, “will give it character”. The concept itself is not new, even in a university — IIT Kanpur has just such an architectural device, though the covered passages are used by cyclists and occasionally by motorcyclists rather than pedestrians — but here will have an interesting character as it dips and rises and curves, with some buildings planned over it, and bridges in other places to link spaces. “Think of it like a street or a bazaar,” explains Gupta, “with students’ activities happening all around. Academic buildings will not open on to the spine but all social activities will evolve from it, such as the drama or debating society offices, cafeterias, the gym, barber’s salon, shops…” Planned as a pedestrian-only university, no vehicles, not even bicycles, will be allowed to traverse the spine.
But it is the earth-air tunnels that are generating the most interest. They have been tried, successfully, in projects earlier, but none of them comes as close in scale. To understand its necessity, you have to listen to Gupta. “Every summer afternoon, this place witnesses huge duststorms, and so much dust could kill a university that uses computerised technology. But now, the controlled ventilation will filter the dust.” In essence, this is how it will work: Pipes four feet in diameter are laid 12 feet under the ground, in between the buildings. At that depth, the temperature, whether in the harshest summer or the coldest winter — and it can get very cold in Neemrana — remains at an ambient 24 degrees. It is this air that will be pulled up by fans, past precipitators to eliminate dust, then pushed through shafts in the buildings through every classroom and student’s room, eliminating the need for air conditioning in all but a few laboratories with sensitive equipment. “The capital cost for laying the earth-air tunnels is approximately the same as air conditioning would have taken,” explains Pawar, “the savings will be in the long-term.” “We should save 60-70 per cent in energy costs,” agrees Gupta, “but even if it is 50 per cent, it is a lot.”
The land, 100 acres of it, is “troubled” according to Pawar, though “secretly I was relieved”, he says, “because not only would I have to pay less for it, straight land is also so much more boring”. To one side the Aravallis present a barrier and, as the civil engineers found to their horror last year, may also result in destructive flash floods. But to check that, eight water dams are being planned in the hills, and Pawar’s team has taken on the onus not just of greening the campus but also of the hills. Local varieties of trees are being planted in huge numbers, and stumps of trees whose branches have been hacked off by local residents for fuel or fodder, are being given protection so they can grown again.
The campus itself is being planned in such a way that the tallest buildings are located right at the end, with the low frontage buildings in the front. For now, the taller buildings are eight floors high, though they have permission to go up to 10 floors, if required. “Buildings in Jawaharlal Nehru University, or the IIT Delhi campus, are very sparse,” explains Gupta, “and land — now a sparse commodity — has not been effectively utilised.” Or, to use a different metaphor, compare the densities of townships like Jaisalmer and Chandigarh, the one much more dense than the other.
“The challenge,” says Gupta, “was to get enough lighting and ventilation into compact architecture.” When you put buildings close to each other, large windows are not sufficient to bring in light, and with some laboratories 30-35 feet deep, how was the use of artificial lighting to be minimised? Gupta’s solution was to create light shelves which are like window ledges that reflect the natural light on to the ceiling and throw it deep into each room. The east-west orientation for windows also allows the most natural light to enter buildings, and they have been positioned to allow, as far as possible, views over the 750-acre range of the Aravalli hills. The process of ventilation was solved through the earth-air tunnels.
There was still the question of materials to be used, Pawar wanting the “closest to nature” and Gupta insisting that they should be “recycled, or at least those that can be recycled”. A happy solution was the use of fly-ash for both concrete as well as bricks. Local stone was another priority, though this wasn’t easy, because it could only be sourced from where mining was permitted — in this case Narnaul, also in Rajasthan. “It’s a kind of sedimentary rock that comes in layers,” Gupta explains, and is therefore easy to use for the perimeter walls and for cladding fascias. “For the building finish,” which must start some time soon if the buildings are to be ready for the first semester, “we’ve used the stone to create a grit plaster of 2-3 mm”, rendering it maintenance-free. Besides solar heating panels, rainwater harvesting facilities and water recycling to an extent of 97 per cent efficiency have been planned.
“We are not yet at a stage of evolution of using materials that are cradle to cradle” — or totally recyclable — “but what we’ve used is at least not cradle to grave either”, that is, destined to be thrown away, according to Gupta. If it succeeds in its efforts, the NIIT University could well be a pointer to harness old and new technologies in large projects — townships or houses — in which ancient wisdom aids modern knowledge. The past does indeed cast long shadows.