Surface Design Awards – Complete

• PUBLIC BUILDING - EXTERIOR
  Public Buildings used by the public for any purpose, such as assembly, education, entertainment, government, healthcare, transport or worship. This will also include civic centres, community centres, libraries, visitor centres, culture, health + wellbeing, faith, education, sports venues and stadia, transport, central + local government, entertainment and event venues.

Name: Lalit Suri Hospitality Institute
Location: Faridabad, Haryana, India
Site area: 5 acres
Built-Up Area: 2,50,000 sq. ft.
Completion date: June 2021
Cost: INR 150 Cr.
Located in Faridabad, the suburbs of New Delhi (NCR), The Lalit Suri Hospitality School imparts education in the service of luxury hospitality. The brief stipulated a design for a sustainable campus that would be set within a modest institutional framework and prepare students for a future in the Indian hospitality trade.
Informed by local building traditions, the project sustains a harmonious dialogue between the built and the unbuilt. The planning strategy focuses on sensitively preserving and integrating an existing cluster of neem trees abutting the site’s northern edge. Therefore, the building actively engages and intertwines with the tree clusters by moving back and forth as required, resulting in multiple landscaped courtyards and shaded areas. The building height is designed to be pedestrian friendly. Hence, its height is kept low, presenting a proportionate human scale and a seamless integration of the ‘exterior’ with the ‘interior’ spaces.
The design approach addresses the institute’s vision of developing a gamut of professional hospitality skills, along with ensuring a dual sense of purpose for each space. While one is educational in nature, the other sets a setting conducive to the experience of luxury hospitality. This flexibility in space-function is reflected across the entire project. Stepwells that are integrated within the design scheme are used as open-air theatres when empty. Cafeterias double up as F&B outlets, where the students eat, as well as learn service. The kitchens are designed to enable students to cook as well as practice their service skills. The entire hostel accommodation is built in a hotel format, where even public gathering spaces are designed to be serviced like congregational spaces within hotels.
All dormitories are multiples of a single optimized bay module. The hostel rooms are planned in a manner that allows the students to experience ‘hospitality’ in a hotel-room format. This modular approach to planning enhances the flexibility and multiplicity of spaces and operations. Open areas work as spill-over spaces to encourage interaction amongst the occupants.
The landscape and the building levels respect the natural slope of the site. The building is also Net Zero design with water during the monsoon. The need for large amounts of freshwater, about 3500 cubic meters, is addressed by collection wells and bioswales that harvest the rainwater, with up to 4900 cubic meters of water collected during the monsoon period.

The primary material of choice was brick; it is locally produced and easily available. Being synonymous with institutional design in India, it blends effortlessly with its surroundings and creates a familiar environment for its students. The use of ceiling-high glass walls allows a seamless integration of nature into the built spaces. It creates an inspiring sense of transparency, with daylight flushing the interiors.
Stone, available from the previously existing site foundation was reused, reiterating the project’s sustainable endeavours. To also minimise energy use for construction, the use of wire cut bricks was selected for the design, ensuring a low maintenance cost and high durability. Undulations and perforations in the facade enable ventilation and shading in the corridors, while the overhangs prevent direct glare in the space, working concurrently to reduce heat gain. The design plays with different forms and levels of fenestrations, revealing interesting gaps, thus reinventing the tradition of the jaali and jharokha (a type of overhanging enclosed balcony).
The use of majorly a singular material for the entire project has various significant functions; being economical and low on maintenance while also lending a sense of timelessness and aiding psychological comfort.

A muted material palette and the combination of passive and active design strategies help create an educational campus that expresses the practice’s key pillars of sustainability, optimisation, uniqueness, and liveability.
One of the critical aspects of the project was the zero tree-cutting goal, which has been successfully achieved through an optimized plan of permissible built volume with a 100% naturally ventilated central spine. The presence of lush foliage helps bring down summer temperatures through transpiration cooling. Moreover, the design of the school incorporates a series of passive cooling measures that reduce ambient temperatures within the building by up to 15 degrees. The simple exposed brick facade with low wall-window ratios is used as a physical barrier that filters in 30% of outdoor light.
The north-south orientation for minimal solar exposure acts as an effective self-shading component that allows the auditorium to buffer from solar gains. Summer winds travelling along the northwest-southeast direction are harnessed and redirected over the stepwells to improve thermal comfort during extremely humid months. Landscaped courtyards enhance the cross-movement of fresh air within the building and reduce temperatures through stack effect. Brick cavity walls, terrace gardens, and cantilever projections further reduce heat gain. The building is partially sunken, providing thermal banking and serving as an acoustic buffer from the adjacent main road.
Breakout spaces or buffer zones have been introduced between buildings, contributing as sustainable design measures and interactive areas for the students and faculty alike. The strategic placement of these courtyards brings positivity in the campus, creating a sense of inclusivity. Being surrounded by forest-like landscape also inspires walkability in the campus. For the students, it categorizes as learning by doing – a mindful living in campus that translates into every aspect of their life.
The courtyard planning, incorporation of lightwells and thermal buffering, and the integration of greenery collectively reduce mechanical energy dependencies and optimize resource consumption, resulting in 100% of the academic area being Net Zero on energy (5,750 sq. m. roof area is provided for solar farming) with an EPI of ≤58kWh/sq. m./yr. compared to the ECBC benchmark of 90 kWh/sq. m./yr.

Ironically, the biggest challenge ended up becoming the biggest strength of the project. The site was covered in forest-like vegetation in one side. Instead of clearing the land for construction, the architects resolved to play this to the project’s strength and used the other end of the site to build the hospitality institution.
Brick became the obvious material choice only for its earthen property and an ability to seamlessly blend in the lush greenery. Existing stone found at the site was given a new life and incorporated into the project as well. The architects were able to curate a pleasant synergy between the existing and the built through their design intervention.

As a campus with hundreds of students, sustainability was incorporated as a value that one could practise. Abundance of greenery on the campus, blending seamlessly with the built form is a big factor in creating a positive influence. It also stimulates mindful living; using stone available at the site and wire cut bricks ensured a considerable reduction in manufacturing costs and energy-use.
One of the inspirations has also been to create a timeless design. Every design decision has been a conscious endeavour to provide as much comfort as possible to residents, limiting use of mechanical heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning requirements.