Greenery-covered Forest School topped with a cycling track
Register for free and continue reading
Join our growing army of changemakers and get unlimited access to our premium content
The initiative provides a healthy school environment and offers interactive learning about the environment and climate change
Spotted: Mumbai-based architecture studio Nudes has designed a school covered in plants for the city of Pune in western India. Topped by a cycling track shaped like an infinity symbol, Forest School is the winning entry for a competition to design a new educational facility for Pune.
The school will consist of a conjoined pair of six-storey cylindrical towers topped with a cycling track on the roof. Stepped balconies covered in plants will twirl around the facade of both buildings to make a vertical forest.
A swimming pool and tennis courts will be built at basement level, a double-height auditorium at ground level and five floors of classrooms above, with 32 metres at its highest point. The overarching cycling track will create two bridges between the towers, one raised over the other creating an endless circuit, compensating for the lack of walkways and cycling tracks in the city.
Nudes, founded by Nuru Karim in 2007, focuses on sustainability and learning. With Pune being the eighth-most populous city in India and suffering from worsening air quality, Karim hopes the Forest School will serve as “a green living skin to purify the air from pollutants and related challenges affecting the health of the inhabitants of a city”. The greenery will also shade the building to help it keep cool naturally during warmer months, in addition to providing a buffer for noise.
Forest School will educate children from nursery age through to 18. The aim is to provide a healthy school environment that also offers opportunities for interactive learning about the environment and climate change. For example, some of the plants on the ground level and courtyard level could be grown and nurtured by students.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, construction will not start on the project until 2021.
Explore more: Architecture & Design Innovations | Sustainability Innovations