An homage to Louis Kahn

Images of Pei Wei Lai's models by photographer Yong Tze Tan (http://www.flickr.com/photos/yongtze/)

So, I've talked about visiting Kahn's work in India and sitting in hours and hours of lectures about Kahn. Part of the travelling studio's work is to design a boutique architecture school in Ahmedabad in the eyes of Kahn or Corbusier or even both. You can bet my design would be heavily inspired by Kahn! (although we all know I won't even get close to designing anywhere like him but I try)

The other requirement of the studio was really to get back to the basics, to get back in touch with pencils, graphic pens and paper. (You've guessed it right, we had to hand draft!) We even brought our drafting tools all the way to India (to later discover that you can get all of those in India for a fraction of the price!!) We also made endless amounts of physical model, which ensured that by the end of the semester, our model making skills were top-notch.

So, we applied whatever we've learnt about Kahn from our studio leader Prof. Haig Beck to our designs. We've also had to incorporate a low-tech environmental sustainable design into our project. We looked at old precedents from the hot-arid climate and examined how the locals incorporated wind towers, courtyards, materials, water and openings into the old courtyard houses to maximize sun light and natural ventilation into the building but also controlling direct sun light and solar radiation into rooms. These were some of the low tech sustainable designs that we took into consideration in our projects.

It was a battle trying to get most of it right especially when the context was the major issue, as we had to design for an earthquake prone zone.

However, in the end all the hard work paid off with great results!

Here are some images of the final model.

Emphasis on geometry and courtyard



Solid continuous columns as structural members and wind towers for natural ventilation

The partis



The wind channeling stairs