A Capstone Project Report
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of
By
Rosemary Florence Joseph
USN: NU19UAR026
Guided by Ar. Palaksha Shetty
Deralakatte, Mangalore, Karnataka, India 575018
June, 2024
I, Rosemary Florence Joseph, USN NU19UAR026, the author of the Capstone Project titled Placemaking Interventions: Reimagining the heart of a school, hereby declare that this is an independent work of mine, carried out towards partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the Bachelors of Architecture degree at Nitte Institute of Architecture, Nitte (Deemed to be University), Mangalore, Karnataka under the guidance of Ar. Palaksha Shetty and Ar. Shubhra Raje.
I also hereby declare that this work, in part or full, has not been submitted to any other University/Institution for any Degree/Diploma.
I hereby declare that Nitte (Deemed to be University) shall have all the copyrights to preserve, use and disseminate this report in print or electronic format for academic/research purposes.
Rosemary Florence Joseph USN: NU19UAR026
Date: 04 June 2024
Place: Mangaluru
This document describes work undertaken as part of the B.Arch. Degree at Nitte Institute of Architecture, Nitte (Deemed to be University), Mangalore, Karnataka. All views and opinions expressed therein remain the sole responsibility of the author, and do not necessarily represent those of Nitte (Deemed to be University), the Project Advisor, or the Capstone Committee.
The Basel Evangelical Mission (B.E.M.) School, is located in Alake in the city of Mangalore, Dakshina Kannada district, in the state of Karnataka, India.
It is one of the oldest schools in south India, established in 1838. The school is located on the narrow end of the Kulur Ferry Road. This primary road which is the only road that can be taken to access the site was formerly known as the Mission High School Road, with the school as its namesake. This road broadens further North and is one of the busier roads in the locality. Although its age would lead it to be recognized as a heritage site, it has not received the heritage statues due to multiple changes that occurred to the built and is currently preserved by the entity that owns the institution; South Kanara Education & Cultural Society.
The school is primarily a Kannada medium government school and is known to be one of the more affordable schools in Mangalore even at the P.U. school level. The school also offers education in English medium from the 6th standard. The curriculum followed is the Karnataka state board and the student to teacher ratio is 1:30.
Figure 23: Mapping of transit points to access the school
Nearest bus stop: 100m away
Nearest railway: Mangalore Central, 1.7km away
Nearest port: Dakke, Bunder 12.40km away
Bus Stops
Bus Stations
Railway Station Site
The school is well connected to the rest of Mangalore City as it is located on the Kulur Ferry Road. As Car Street is a hub of commercial activity, its location in the heart of Mangalore places the site in proximity to multiple transit amenities such as the private bus station at State Bank(1.8km) and KSRTC bus station (3.2km), Mangalore Central Railway Station (1.7km) and the Bengere Ferry Line in Bunder (1.3km)
Figure 24: State Bank Bus Stand, KSRTC Bus Stand (top), Mangalore Central Railway Station, Bengere Ferry Station (Bottom) (From Left to Right)
Image Sources: Mangalore City News, Mangalore Today, The Hindu, Tour Mangaluru
LEGEND
Figure 25: Mapping of transit and road typologies around the school
Primary Road
Secondary Road
Tertiary Road
Auto Stand
Bus Stop
The immediate access roads around the site are the Kulur Ferry road on the West which is a primary road and a service road in the East of the site. The urban block where the school is located has auto stands at its North-Western and South-Western corners as well as a bus stop.
Traffic at 8a.m.
Traffic at 12 p.m.
Figure 26: Variation in traffic intensity around the site through the day
Image Source: Google Maps
Traffic at 4 p.m.
Moderate traffic
Low traffic
When studying the maps on traffic intensity, it is understood that the locality gets particularly busy around noon until the evening. The area on an average through the day has a moderate amount of vehicular traffic
The locality of Car Street is better known for its commercial nature, as seen in the land use map, where the parts of the urban block facing a main road are made up of commercial establishments.
However, according to the land use map and the byelaws, the locality from Lower Car Street to BEM School is classified as an intensely populated area of residential and commercial land use.
The contours have been taken at a 2m interval. The site lies at 20m above the sea level and the slope between contours is gentle.
From this map we understand the porosity of the built fabric surrounding the site.
Towards the West is a considerably tight, built environment. This is most likely due to its proximity to Bunder and the old port. This places it near the most prominent commercial and industrial hub within the bounds of Mangalore city.
The East shows a little more permeability between the built up primarily due to the existence of multiple institutional gathering spaces such as that of schools and temples.
When the Swiss-German Basel Missionaries first realized the extent of economic backwardness that persisted in Mangalore during the British Regime, they found themselves gravitating towards an agenda where improving the lifestyle and economy for the locals became their priority. This was to the point that, while their original mission was establishing schools and institutions to train local missionary candidates, they realized that this aim could not be accomplished on its own. It was equally important that the same amount of investment was required in developing the economy through improved production units in the industrial sector of Mangalore. This had to occur in parallel to developing the educational institutions to better support both causes.
Their earliest of the educational institutions established in India by the Basel Mission was the Basel Evangelical Mission School located in what is today known as Car Street, Mangalore. Established in 1838, as a formal, co-ed English medium school, their objective was to educate the local children while not enforcing Western ideals. As a result, the school was accessible to both boys and girls of multiple backgrounds and did not mandate English as the only permitted language in the school grounds. The students had the freedom to speak in their mother tongues alongside learning the English language, allowing for a more diverse student demographic as students would be Tulu, Kannada, Konkani, Beary, & Malayalam speakers.
The school was raised to the status of a high school in 1888, thus becoming one of the oldest formal high schools in India. Until World War I, the school was owned by the Basel Missionaries. As relations between the British and Germans grew hostile, all Basel Mission assets were taken over by the British government as they were forced to withdraw operations in British India. In 1918, the management was transferred to an Indian entity; the Malabar and South Canara Educational Society following which, in 1940 the school received a permanent recognition by the Madras government.
During the Missionaries tenure with the school, the first buildings built for the school was that of their main classroom blocks for early education, primary school, higher primary school, secondary school, high school and a kalamantapa Under the missionaries the overall size of the BEM school campus grew to 6 acres with multiple school blocks added to their complex, including a few across the Mission High main road. Following the departure of the missionaries due to the WWI in 1918, was the school’s centenary anniversary. In commemoration of the event, in 1938, a centenary hall was constructed in honour of their past legacy.
All of these buildings were built in the same language introduced by the missionaries. The buildings were constructed with brick piers and mud load bearing walls all clad in mud plaster and Mangalore tiled roofs were used. After this, the reduced funding for the school brought about the threat of closing down the school, in 1959 the management and ownership was transferred to the South Kanara Educational and Cultural Society with whom the school is currently under. Following this transfer of ownership, in 1967 the Pre-University block was constructed in an RCC framed structure with the option for addition of floors over time.
The BEM school of today has remained true to its roots in equitable access to education to all students irrespective of their backgrounds and ethnicity and still maintain a certain degree of diversity in their student body. Currently, as a Kannada medium government school the school is known in Mangalore as the most affordable school available. The English medium school starts from the 6th grade onwards and the PreUniversity courses are inclusive of both arts and commerce streams. Further, the school is very supportive of the performance arts and sports, and so encourage participation by outsourcing resources to help improve the students’ skills in their extracurriculars.
The school campus saw significant changes now due to multiple reasons. One of the primary causes was the road expansion that followed the 3.9 magnitude earthquake in 2012. Due to this the school lost a 30ft of its frontage to the road expansion project. As a result, the building façade had to be reconstructed in a different design language from the original, resulting in the classrooms to have very small windows
The second change was brought when a large portion of the property had to be sold out due to financial problems. Some of the property was rented out to earn revenue for the school and as a result the overall size of the campus dropped from 6 acres to 2 acres, thus consolidating all the different classrooms into only 3 buildings, namely the first building which is the main block, the kalamantapa block and the Pre-University block.
In an effort to improve the school infrastructure, the management came to the decision that a full campus redesign was necessary to improve the status of the school. Although all the traditional load bearing buildings still had around 150 years of life span left in its structure according to a survey done by the school, the decision of an entire campus remodel was seen as the best option. The plan was to carry out an incremental development process where one selected building was first demolished and replaced with a new construction and repeat the process with all the existing buildings.
The first building to be taken down was the Kalamantapa block as well as the entrance archway of the oldest building which is the façade on the West of the side. The construction began in 2017 but financial issues and the Covid-19 pandemic affected the progress of the project, leading to a standstill since 2019
4.5.2 Site Sections
4.5.4
High School & Kindergarten Key Plan
High School & Kindergarten Key Plan
4.5.5 Building Documentation – Pre-University & Moegling English School
Elevation A
Elevation B
Pre University & Moegling English School Key Plan
4.5.6 Building Documentation – Centenary Hall
4.6 Site Analysis
Pedestrian Entry Point
4.6.1 Site Circulation LEGEND Vehicular Circulation Pedestrian Circulation 1.4m Footpath 24m Kulur Ferry Road
Vehicular Entry Point
– Unmaintained, currently unused
1. Primary school front ground
• The front ground is disconnected from the rest of the school, students would prefer to play in the larger ground
2. Primary school back ground
• Completely unused due to its proximity to the washrooms
3. Kindergarten play area
• The small outdoor play area is close to paths of vehicular movement which brings a feeling of a lack of safety for the Kindergarteners.
4. Non demarcated parking
• Vehicles unrelated to the school use the grounds as parking during and outside of school hours, resulting in a moderate amount of vehicular movement in the site
5. School Ground
• There is no connecting element between the primary cluster of school blocks and the Pre-University block. It is the only route of access to reach the Pre-University from the entrance gate.
6. Halted Construction Site
• As the future of the halted construction is unknown, it is an unusable space with a lot of debris dumping and wild plant overgrowth.
Management Office 40 sqm Meetings, admission process hosted here 2 Administration Office 65 sqm Records and sports supplies maintained here 3 Headmaster’s Office 30sqm Meetings can also be held here
4 Lower Primary Classroom 30sqm65sqm Some are attached to the staff rooms. Sometimes shuffled with secondary classes.
5 Higher Primary Classroom 62 sqm Water tank installed against it at the nook results in mold growth due to moisture.
5 Secondary Classroom 30sqm65sqm Smaller classrooms compared to the lower primary classrooms 6 Staff room 15sqm –30sqm 3 staff rooms in total, one is not open to a classroom 7 Science Lab 45sqm Small but adequate for demonstrations
one high school classroom in this block.
used as a staff lounge, exam paper admin and small computer lab
No. Room Area
Observations
1 Auditorium 255 sqm Occasionally opened for small events in the community such as seminars
2 School Boys Washroom 20 sqm Boys Washroom includes a shower space & considerably larger
3 School Girls Washroom 9 sqm Small washroom with 3 stalls and only one sink
4 Shower 10 sqm Common Boys & girls Shower space with only half wall partitions
Informing Factors
Preconception that Kannada Medium schools are low quality in Education
School Infrastructure that furthers the preconception
Nooky Kindergarten
Abandoned construction in the middle of the school grounds
Small details in the built that appear poorly maintained.
E.g.: Moldy nooks, windows without shutters, warped doors
Bare minimum library and computer lab facility indicative of a non-future ready approach to education
Design Strategies Identified
Mixed Medium School
Vast Ground Small playground for the kindergarten
Current information commons frequented by teachers not students
Improve literary acquisition for students of both mediums
Insufficient pause points, no connecting element
Circulation improvement required
Limited circulation for the children
Relocation required. Reprogramming of the existing zoning needed
Zoning Concept 1
Zoning Concept 2
Zoning Concept 3
Reprogramming of spaces
Both grounds open up to playschool and kindergarteners when the washrooms are moved
7.1 Masterplan
To conclude, based on the precedent study on how the school environment not only impacts the students but also the school’s place value in its built context, the project seeks to fill in the missing features in the selected site. This was done by identifying programmes that could be added or done better and then resulted in the finally design of a student centre mainly characterized by its information commons
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BEM School Website