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Mumbai, Singapore, and London-based Serie Architects has designed the RP Goenka International School in Kolkata, which is an educational project spanning 2,10,000 sq. ft. The layout comprises the basement and nine floors, with 60 percent of the plot dedicated to open grounds. The client didn’t want a typical school design, so the firm chose to take inspiration from a playful stack of Jenga blocks, a wooden block game played by children.

The school’s design incorporates double-height sky terraces on alternate floors, with a 10,000 sq. ft. rooftop play area with football, cricket net, and swimming pool. One finds a half-Olympic-sized swimming pool with a shower and changing facilities. The school has a dedicated 17,000 sq. ft. of indoor sports facilities with a 100-m. running track on the ground level. To promote sports in the institution, the firm developed badminton and basketball courts, squash courts, table tennis, and yoga rooms.

The school wanted to promote arts and cultures with a 400+ person capacity auditorium facility in the multipurpose hall, with breakout and recreational areas. Around 6000 sq. ft. of dedicated indoor activity is reserved for pre-primary students such as a ball pool, sensory panels, and a jungle gym. An 1100-sq. ft. jungle-themed PYP library with a 2000 sq. ft. breakout area bathed in natural light, a four-storeyed atrium, music rooms with solo practice rooms, and a black box room with audio-visual facilities allow extracurricular activities.

There is a dedicated dining area and seminar room for fifty rooms, all with dimmable artificial lights with 300-500 lux levels. Eight-foot-tall glass windows are installed in all spaces for ample natural daylight, with colorful sound absorption panels in classrooms.