Mandvi Auditorium

The orientation and design of the auditorium in a campus designed by The Co.De, Neogenesis+Studi 0261 and CAN Architecture in Mandvi, India, responds to its context and the adjoining roads. The site is approximately three meters higher than the neighboring road and is enclosed by other academic blocks. The campus master plan was an important design consideration since the site is located within an educational society.

  The simplicity of the form is derived from the program itself. The whole program was divided into three parts – the auditorium block, a circular wall and a rectangular admin & service block. Idea was to design a public interface within the campus that also interacts with the adjoining road and surroundings outside campus as the dialogue of this structure with road is very important. The rectangular seating hall is enveloped within the circular wall such that it remains unseen from its context comprising of structures with not more than G+1 level. The circular wall serves as a barricade and marks for the overall configuration.

The circular wall sweeps into prolonged public entrance foyer with accessible ramps on the west and south corners. The access wall leads to the lobby and admin area which subsequently leads to the seating hall that accommodates 260 persons. Wall and ceiling were treated with special form of spruce wood to restrain the acoustical values. This wood was procured from Europe as it turned out to be more economical than buying locally. The seating area was glinted with indirect lighting that diffuses along the shape of spruce wood paneling.

Auditorium for Mandvi Education Society, Mandvi, India
Program: auditorium
Architects: Niel Parekh (The Co.De), Chinmay Laiwala, Jigar Asarawala, Tarika Asarawala (Neogenesis+Studi 0261), Anil Kantrodia and Chirag Torawala (CAN Architecture)
Structural Engineer: Arcon Consultants
Contractor: Nitin Steels, Cine works
Area: 890 sqm
Completion: 2016