Design Highlights.docx

Designed to serve the local Dalit Buddhist community, it offers spaces for meditationand yoga, as well as academic and vocational training.

By dividing the facility up into six separate buildings, the architects were able to prevent any trees being felled during construction. These buildings are arranged around two courtyards.

Instead of typical gables, the buildings all feature V-shaped roofs. This makes it possible for occupants to look out at the trees and sky during activities, and enables cross ventilation.

"By inverting the roof profile, with a centre valley in the middle and rising edges, the interior spaces were visually connected with the foliage outside," said the team. "The separation of the roof from the walls, while providing much needed cross ventilation, also scales the building towards the courtyard."

The buildings were constructed with the help of local artisans, while the land was donated by a local sugar factory owner.

Sameep Padora & Associates is based in Mumbai. Other projects by the studio include a house made up of stacked horizontal volumes and a small temple. Images are by British photographer Edmund Sumner, who also recently shot a cloud-inspired nursery by Junya Ishigami and Kenzo Tange's 1960s St Mary's Cathedral in Tokyo.