Pod for Happiness is a 15 m² ferrocement arc that embraces an existing banyan tree on a school campus in Baramati, Maharashtra. Within a largely open 4,110 m² ground, the intervention links two playfields while retaining clear circulation, shading a circular learning area, and supporting play, gathering, and ritual without enclosing the site.
Pod for Happiness Technical Information
- Architects: Craft Narrative
- Location: Baramati, Maharashtra, India
- Gross Area: 15 m2 | 161 Sq. Ft.
- Project Year: 2024
- Photographs: © Studio f/8
We set the banyan’s canopy as the primary room, letting a thin, porous arc stitch play, learning, and ritual into a continuous ground that the village already knows how to use.
– Yatindra Patil and Vijay Kharade
Centering the Banyan: Site Strategy and Context
The project positions the banyan as a structural shade and a social anchor. Rather than introduce a freestanding object, the thin arc bends around the trunk to establish a new node in the campus while preserving the two open playfields to either side. The trace of the intervention reads as a calibrated edge that holds space without closing it, allowing existing sports and circulation to continue without diversion.
Its porosity aligns with daily village routines of walking, pausing, and exchanging under trees. Openings allow paths to pass through the arc, so the insert behaves as a filter rather than a barrier. This approach acknowledges the established habit of evening strolls beneath shade, translating that pattern into a spatial device that supports both children and adults.
A short bridge rises within the arc to meet the height of the banyan’s lower canopy, framing views across the grounds and toward the nearby temple. The section is modest yet precise: it lifts the eye line just enough to connect everyday movement to the cultural landmarks that structure village life, tying play and pedagogy to a broader field of reference.
An Arc that Orchestrates Play, Learning, and Performance
The arc aggregates a sequence of child-scaled actions in a compact footprint. Tapered walls provide climbable gradients, the bridge-walk sets up crossing and pause points, and a slide and swing extend movement beyond the structure. The curvature lets activities overlap without conflict, so multiple play trajectories unfold simultaneously while keeping sightlines open for supervision.
At ground level, a circular seating ring forms an outdoor classroom under the banyan. Brick and repurposed terrazzo tiles define a robust surface for art, clay work, and reading. Small niches carved into the arc create acoustically calmer pockets for individual or paired study, allowing teachers to distribute small groups across varying degrees of exposure to light, noise, and airflow.
During events, the geometry operates as both stage and backdrop. The convex edge presents a focal line for performers, while the surrounding open ground becomes an informal amphitheater. The absence of fixed bleachers preserves the field for everyday use and allows seating to re-form around different orientations, converting the playground into a civic performance ground when required.
Material Economy and Making: Ferrocement, Finish, and Reuse
Constructed in ferrocement, the envelope achieves slender section depths with continuous curvature and punctures. The system’s high reinforcement-to-mortar ratio supports thin, climbable skins that can taper at edges, enabling the arc to read light against the large ground plane. Minimal footings limit disturbance around the banyan while allowing the structure to land decisively at a few points.
A traditional red oxide plaster coats the shell, providing a matte, durable finish with low glare in strong sun. The color situates the object within regional material culture, registering clearly against earth and grass while remaining visually recessive under the tree’s shade. The tactile surface supports bare-handed grip and weathers in a way that shows use without rapid degradation.
Resource-conscious detailing is evident in the repurposed elements: leftover reinforcement rods form railings with a readable rhythm and adequate transparency, and a combination of brick and reclaimed terrazzo tiles defines the circular seating. These choices minimize cost and embodied energy while providing the assembly with a legible construction logic that can be maintained and adapted over time.
Social Ecology: From School Infrastructure to Civic Ritual
The pod is programmed by the day’s rhythm. During school hours, it serves as a playscape and an outdoor classroom, and then it transforms at dusk into a social hub for the village. The intervention maintains the continuity of the public ground, enabling everyday activities such as sports, walking loops, and informal conversations to intermingle with quieter pursuits like reading and study.
A shaded katta under the banyan reinstates a familiar typology of communal seating. Its proportion invites lingering without prescribing behavior, allowing intergenerational use that ranges from children’s games to elders’ conversations. A simple bookshelf extends this hospitality into learning, letting books circulate beyond the classroom and into the social life of the courtyard.
The place also supports ritual practice, including Vat Purnima observances around the banyan. The arc frames the tree as a shared focus without fencing it off, so spiritual and cultural rhythms can coexist with daily school use. In doing so, the intervention binds institutional grounds to village life, not through formal monumentality but through repeatable patterns of occupancy and care.
About Craft Narrative
Craft Narrative is an architecture practice based in India, founded by Yatindra Patil and Vijay Kharade. The studio’s work is rooted in contextual responsiveness, with an emphasis on community engagement and site-sensitive interventions. Their approach seamlessly integrates material economy and ecological sensitivity with social and cultural programming, creating spaces that are both experiential and sustainable.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Structural engineers: Sonal N
- Team Design Credits: Bharat Yadav, Manasi, Yatindra Patil, and Vijay Kharade
- Client: Village Panchayat of Hignigada, Baramati
- Photographs: Studio f/8
