Learning Center at Quest / KSM Architecture

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The learning center has been designed as a collection of free-flowing volumes that give a feeling of space and visual connectivity. One gains access to the building through a tree-lined front court with a set of steps and a ramp. One enters the rectangular building footprint in the center into an atrium-like volume that opens up to the full height of the building, with an amphitheater rising to the right and a gallery space towards the left.In section, the building opens towards the south, the ambient wind direction inChennai. The southern side of the site is raised in the form of a garden to harness the south breeze while also taking advantage of a wind channel caused by the extended road beyond the site. The amphitheater connects the arrival space to the library above as a seamless volume overlooking the raised garden on the south. The garden can be accessed by a slide that begins at the library. Five classrooms are stacked on either side of the central atrium, and inside this atrium is a metal staircase that winds its way up, connecting all the levels. At the fourth level, the staircase comes out of the building and faces the dorm of a spiral stair leading up to a rooftop cafeteria, which opens out into a landscaped terrace on the south.This insulation system virtually removes all the heat on these walls. There is a sense of openness with no clear demarcation of space or volume - every space seamlessly blends with the gardens beyond. The warm glow of glare-free natural light creates a cheerful ambiance, and the sense of fun is accentuated by the use of color, with a natural breeze wafting through the various levels- all of this provides an ideal platform for learning.Text description provided by the architects.The learning center at Quest is located on a 540 sqm piece of land, about 300 m from the seafront in Besant Nagar,Chennai. It is a learning center for children ages 8 to 16 years old. The center acts as a learning and interaction space for largely home-schooled children or those with the ‘unschooling’ pattern of education, which involves teaching children based on their interests rather than a set curriculum.From a climate sensitivity standpoint, the buildings' easters and western walls have been designed as insulated cavity walls with minimum opening. In contrast, the southern and northern walls have full-length operable windows that allow the ambient south breeze and are shaded by vertical aluminum aerofoil-shaped louvers. The eastern and western walls are composite 400mm wide, consisting of a 300mm wide cavity wall with a 50 mm thick XPS infill as the inner layer with a bamboo shuttered GFRC facade panel as a self-shading skin with a 25mm air cavity.