Cloister in the Forest | Design Cooperative [DCOOP]

Excerpt: Cloister in the Forest by DCOOP is conceived as a multi-layered response to density, sustainability, and student life within the IIT Bombay campus. The three hostel blocks are strategically arranged around a spacious cloistered courtyard, preserving the site’s dense foliage and existing trees. Rooted in passive design and circular construction principles, the architecture creates a hierarchy of social spaces while connecting memory, landscape, and community.

Project Description

[Text as submitted by architect] This project has been conceived as a multi-layered approach to sustainability, social life and architectural expression.

As with the rest of Mumbai, the IIT Bombay campus faces the challenge of housing an increasing population on a limited parcel of land. The new cluster of three hostels is designed to accommodate 1127 students on a hostel plot that initially held 252 students. The site abuts Powai Lake and is covered with dense foliage of old trees.

The primary gesture of organization comes from an impulse of preserving this invaluable natural habitat: The three blocks are located in voids created by the demolished hostel blocks and strategically arranged around the perimeter of the site to enclose a spacious cloistered courtyard that retains most of the large existing trees.

The two boys’ hostels (Nos.7 & 8) are positioned at the northern and western edges, while the girls’ hostel (No. 21) is located on the eastern edge making a seamless connection with the present girls’ hostel. Eight floors of hostel rooms sit above a two-level podium that houses common amenities – a common dining, study areas, foyers, recreational spaces, and a café.

The architectural and structural grid is derived from a rhythmic play of modules based on room sizes. On the lower two floors, the formal expression of this grid transforms to create the varied experiences in the public spaces.

A multitude of spaces and experiences weave together the lived experience of hostel life as students have the possibility of engaging with others at multiple scales. Ranging from intimate breakout spaces on each floor for a handful of residents, common open terraces in each hostel and the large central courtyard that can house hundreds at a time, the architecture enables a hierarchy of social spaces.

The design prioritizes passive building performance, focusing on visual and thermal comfort:  Using both heuristic knowledge and extensive digital software, the building orientation, breakout spaces for cross ventilation, and strategically designed openings to modulate light and breeze work to reduce reliance on energy-intensive mechanical systems.

Embracing circular construction principles, the material generated by the demolition of the existing hostel blocks – more than 60-years old – was salvaged. Amongst other things that were reused are the recovered stone slabs which are used in the landscape, and wooden doors and windows which have been repaired and incorporated into the dining block and café. These are not just examples of sustainable construction but, in a building funded by alumni, they become portals of memory connecting the past to the present.