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* the research and the practical experience of Need Assessment, |
Deriving from these main criteria, the Language Laboratory design integrates the Building Specifications
LAYOUT GROUND FLOOR
According to the site location, there will be a guided access to the entrance along a parking area (wall with pergolas for creepers and shading).
The entrance hall (1) is a lounge offering space for the reception, information, bulletin boards, actual programmes and exhibitions.
The reception is placed along a "Technical Tower" (2), which includes technical rooms (for electricity, water, solar equipment, batteries and UPS), a storeroom, an office space and a kitchen, which has a counter that can serve for special occasions as a buffet and also prepare beverages and small food items for the café area in front of the entrance.
The entrance hall (covered partly by a gallery -see first floor 11) gives access to a covered terrace, the teaching area (classroom 4-9) and the bathrooms (3) beside an inner garden at the staircase.
The ground floor level is planned 1m above the soil, which, besides giving rain-water protection, has the additional advantage of using different levels to create different room heights, with an effect on space, feeling, sound, and diverse room identities. Classroom 8 is an inside-outside forum accessible from the extended corridor area with 4-sided wide sitting steps, framed by a buffering garden and an open space, which could take up Indian sculptures.... Probably, this will be the room for Sanskrit.
Classroom 5, 6, 7 and 9 can be opened in different directions to patios (open areas covered by pergolas for outside teaching - as additional space to foster individual or group teaching so as to create ideal teaching situations suitable to all). There will be a multi-language room/computer-based group learning room, as well as classrooms for French, English and Tamil.
The outside meeting area oriented towards the covered terrace (useable as a stage), offers space for an amphitheater and outdoor cinema, projected on the wall of the "
The landscaped area will include a covered Children's Play area with toilets where children of the students using the Laboratory will be cared for, and can study/play.
The caretaker house is oriented to the North and also offers additional space for guests.
The classrooms will provide a space for the specificities of each language to flower, taking into account different learning needs, and taking advantage of both the practical experience of the teachers and research into design elements specific to language-learning classrooms.
LAYOUT FIRST FLOOR
The first floor is reached by the open staircase from the lounge (see sketch design elements), with close access to the bathrooms (13) and a lift system for disabled and aged participants.
The gallery (11) looks down to the entrance hall and offers reading/study space, as well as sitting space to watch videos, films, and slide projections (the wall of the "Technical Tower" is providing the screen- the entrance facade on this level provides vertical louvers to darken the room accordingly without effort).
The "
The access from the gallery to the computer and classrooms and the common library can be closed by a sliding wall-door. The north oriented part of the library offers an additional open loft under the up swinging roof, as further quiet reading and studying space.
GENERAL LAYOUT ELEMENTS
The orientation of the building and the roof design follow the main design criteria for a passive ventilation-cooling system: long side facade oriented to the south, south-east with smaller calculated openings exposed to the wind, in order to create, over extended openings on the opposite side, a sucking effect outside of the building (double wall on the north facade).
Beside the thermic necessity, the shape of the roof offers the ideal location, slope and angle to take up the solar panels.
Alpha and omega of the design is based on the existing cl