Ekta Kiritbhai Gohel

1016-B

              The community science center (CSC) was established in the 1960s by the eminent space scientist, Vikram Sarabhai. The Center works towards popularizing science and mathematics education among students, teachers and the general public. The existing Center has laboratories (Physics, Chemistry, biology, Maths, computer, rocketry) with the library, workshop, and administration facilities.                                 It has been 5o years now to the Center, and it has been through numerous paradigm shifts in science and technology during this period. The way I see it, the Center provides an innovative learning environment as envisioned by the founder. But there is a need to expand the Center, with an infill of intervention spaces catering to outreach for the Center. The proposed expansion would incorporate new functions like an innovation corner, various kind of exhibition spaces, an auditorium, and a planetarium. The abovementioned design brief is an outcome of careful consideration of what’s lacking in the Center today as discussed with its director in an interview.
              The key goal behind the expansion is to make the Center, less formal, more porous and fluid in the context of its relationship with the city and its people. Through intervention, I intend to put forth an informal dimension of the Center. Which can be seen as a continuation of existing in teams of materialistic and non-materialistic value. As an architectural presence extension is drawing from existing context but defining its own character.