Prestige University in Indore consolidates administrative offices, library facilities, seminar halls, classrooms, an auditorium, and a cafeteria within a 30,843 m2 institutional block set inside a 32-acre campus. Rather than forming a singular monumental object, the five-level structure unfolds as a diagonally stepping mass that transforms its roof into an accessible landscape, embedding social space and climatic response into the building’s section.
Prestige University Technical Information
- ArchitectsSanjay Puri Architects
- LocationIndore, Madhya Pradesh, India
- Gross Area30,843 m2 | 332,000 Sq. Ft.
- Project Years2018 – 2026
- Photographs© Vinay Panjwani
The building is conceived as a stepped landscape where circulation, climate, and collective gathering are shaped through section rather than façade.
– Sanjay Puri
Reinterpreting the Stepwell: Massing as Social Topography
The 28-metre-high academic block is organized as a diagonal cascade that rises from the approach edge and culminates at its northern extremity. Instead of presenting a singular vertical façade, the mass recedes in calibrated increments, producing a terraced profile that reads as an extension of the ground plane. From the main road, the building appears low and horizontal, its height only revealed as one traverses or ascends it. This manipulation of perception scales a large institutional program within an open campus landscape.
The roofscape forms the project’s principal public realm. A total of 463 stepped platforms aggregate into a 9,000-square-metre open-air auditorium capable of accommodating up to 9,000 students. The terraces operate both as circulation spaces and as areas of occupation, enabling simultaneous informal use and large-scale collective events. Grass pockets and planted recesses soften the geometry, reinforcing the reading of the building as constructed terrain.
The configuration recalls the sectional logic of historic Indian stepwells, where descent structured communal life around water. Here, ascent and descent choreograph interaction across an educational setting. The reference is spatial rather than stylistic. The stepped form establishes a social topography in which gathering is embedded into the architecture itself, transforming the institutional roof into an inhabited civic platform.
Climate as Generator: Courtyards, Screens, and Passive Strategies
Indore’s prolonged periods of high temperatures, ranging between 30 and 40 degrees Celsius for much of the year, inform the environmental strategy. Landscaped courtyards punctuate the plan’s depth, introducing diffused north light while facilitating cross-ventilation. These voids are not residual spaces but calibrated environmental devices that temper glare and heat, allowing interior areas to rely less on artificial lighting and mechanical cooling.
The east, west, and south façades are enveloped in ventilated GFRC screens patterned with geometric perforations. The screens reduce direct solar gain while allowing air movement and filtered visibility. Their terracotta hue aligns with the brick surfaces, producing a consistent chromatic field across solid walls and perforated layers. Shadow and light register across the patterned surfaces, adding environmental performance without resorting to additional applied systems.
Environmental moderation also occurs through the section. The stepped roof generates shaded terraces and varying depths of overhang, while planted courts and a ground-level water feature contribute localized cooling. Shaded corridors along the diagonal street maintain air movement at the pedestrian level. Climatic response is embedded in the spatial framework, integrating thermal comfort with daily circulation and gathering.
Diagonal Street and Sectional Organization: Circulation as Experience
A continuous diagonal indoor street organizes the plan, cutting across the building from southwest to northeast. This covered passage acts as a central spine linking public amenities, academic spaces, and administrative functions. Its width and height allow it to function as more than a corridor; it accommodates informal occupation and visual exchange across courtyards and adjacent rooms.
Program distribution follows a vertical gradient. The ground floor houses the auditorium, food court, and administrative offices for direct access. Library components occupy the first floor, bridged across the diagonal street and overlooking planted courts. Classrooms are located on the second and third levels, including tiered teaching spaces, each drawing light and air from adjacent voids. The fourth floor consolidates faculty and executive offices, completing the academic hierarchy upward.
Sections reveal a series of double-height volumes, bridges, and voids that interlock with the stepped exterior. Visual connectivity between levels encourages awareness of collective activity. Open courts act as spillover zones where circulation expands into pause points. Movement is choreographed as an experiential sequence, alternating between compression along passages and expansion into courtyards or terraces.
Materiality and Spatial Atmosphere: Brick, Concrete, and Light
The project employs a restrained palette of brick, terracotta-toned GFRC, and exposed concrete. Brick walls define terraces and courtyards, establishing tactile surfaces that resonate with regional construction practices. The GFRC screens, matched in tone, extend this material continuity across façades while introducing degrees of permeability. The result is a unified exterior that balances mass and porosity.
Along the indoor street and within double-height spaces, exposed concrete columns and soffits articulate structural clarity. The concrete frame contrasts with the texture of brick infill, emphasizing a legible construction logic. In the cafeteria and major gathering areas, the structural grid remains visible, reinforcing the institutional character without ornamental overlay.
Light functions as an architectural medium. Tall interior courtyards with irregular window compositions frame fragments of sky, creating vertical shafts of illumination. Narrow passages between brick walls produce moments of compression before opening onto expansive terraces. Across the stepped roof, low parapets modulate views and cast rhythmic shadows. Through these calibrated transitions, the building operates simultaneously as infrastructure for education and as a civic landscape shaped by light, material, and section.
About Sanjay Puri Architects
Sanjay Puri Architects is an award-winning architecture and interior design studio based in Mumbai, India. With a team of 108 professionals working on projects across 55 cities, the practice is driven by contextual and sustainable design solutions that explore spatial perception through innovative sectional strategies, climatic responsiveness, and socially engaging built environments.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Architecture & Interior Design: Sanjay Puri Architects
- Lead Designers: Sanjay Puri, Ruchika Gupta, Madhavi Belsare
- Design Team: Manveer Chopra, Devendra Dugad, Arjun Gupta, Bijal Bhayani
- Client: Prestige Education Society
- Construction Company: BL Constructions
