The Velammal Art Project, located 30km from Chennai, in Ponneri, brings together art, education, and wellness on a common platform to create a multi cultural, inclusive and interactive space for the generations to come. The Velammal Educational trust, who is the client body to the project, envisioned to create a balanced environment where one could embrace co-existence in the natural world while also imbibing the latest of technologies.
In order to develop a harmonious cultural space for the future, the project through its spatial planing establishes different relationships through spaces of learning, performance, exhibition and repose, which crystallised into an Integrated Learning Centre, The Centre for Contemporary Arts and The Wellness Centre.
The clues to the architecture of these concepts lied within Ponneri and its neighbouring towns itself. Bazaars, Temple complexes and residences helped to understand the varying scales of engagement the institutions needed. The movement between the geometry of these blocks is designed taking the site contours to its advantage, creating a series of moments of pause and nodal junctions whereby one in subliminally guided through a narrative. The route of traverse is thereby just as important as qualitative spaces as the destination is.
The earth formations at site became soft boundaries and provided the required insulation from the high tension lines nearby with embankments with large trees. Where natural opportunities as such were absent, the building places itself partially under the ground and the land around it slopes to let in light and rainwater.