2024 Winner
Category - Architecture - Public & Institutional Building
Harsh Desai
MANAYAN ARCHITECTS
Founded in 1984, Manayan Architects is a multidisciplinary design studio offering professional services in architecture, interior design, urban design, and landscape architecture. With over three decades of practice, the studio is deeply rooted in crafting contextually responsive, climate-sensitive designs that evolve from local culture, site conditions, and natural elements.
At the heart of Manayan’s design philosophy is the belief that efficiency and minimalism lead to more meaningful outcomes. Rather than focusing on abstract concepts, the firm follows a process-driven approach, where each project emerges from the core idea of shelter—offering protection, comfort, and belonging. Whether designing institutions, residential projects, offices, or industrial spaces, the studio maintains a consistent focus on creating human-centric environments grounded in place and purpose.
Harsh Desai, principal architect at Manayan Architects, brings a rich academic and hands-on perspective to the studio. A graduate of CEPT University, Ahmedabad and ETH Zurich, with further specialization from Building Beauty, Italy, Harsh’s work explores regional, place-based design approaches that prioritize wholeness, identity, and community connection.
With a portfolio spanning residential architecture, interior design, and traditional settlement documentation, Harsh is also involved in academia, currently serving as visiting faculty at CEPT University. His ongoing engagement with Himalayan architectural studies and structuralism theory further informs the studio’s grounded yet evolving design approach.
Area: 16500 sq ft
Designed by Harsh Desai, the school offers a thoughtful reinterpretation of learning spaces through climate-sensitive design, incremental growth, and the spatial memory of courtyards rooted in Indian tradition.
Design Rooted in Nature and Flexibility
The project began with a simple but powerful idea: to create shaded, interactive spaces around a central courtyard. By wrapping classrooms around a void, the design not only responds to the local climate but also redefines this void as a multi-purpose zone—serving as an amphitheatre, prayer hall, and gathering space.
To address seasonal flooding from the adjacent river, the built mass is smartly elevated on stilts, transforming the ground below into a habitable shaded plaza. This base level is finished in terrazzo flooring, blending rough and polished textures to form a dynamic, directionless plane where play, pause, and informal learning can take place.
Courtyards, Trees, and Moments of Pause
The presence of existing trees dictated the spatial arrangement—framing smaller courtyards, providing shade, and shaping outdoor playscapes. Custom-designed freeform otlas, breakout seating, and crafted railings invite children to engage with the built environment in tactile and playful ways.
Each classroom opens into its own threshold space, creating micro-moments of interaction—a bench, a pause, a place to think. The design accommodates incremental development, allowing the school to grow organically with time—just like its students.
Process Over Form, People Over Object
Reflecting Manayan Architects’ philosophy of “process over concept,” this school emphasizes shelter, growth, and community over sculptural form. The flexible concrete grid system ensures that new blocks can be added over time, responding to the changing needs of the institution.
By anchoring the project in local context, user behavior, and environmental sensitivity, The Courtyard School demonstrates how education spaces can be sustainable, intuitive, and deeply humane.
Why The Courtyard School Was a VOX Architecture Ideas 2024 Winner
VOX Architecture Ideas 2024 recognized this project for its climate-responsive strategies, inclusive design, and its gentle architectural language that encourages discovery and interaction. It exemplifies how educational architecture in India can be both cost-effective and spiritually rich—where every element is designed not just to be seen, but to be used, touched, and lived in.
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