Tanvi Gupta
School of Design

A differently enabled centre for amazingly abled children
A vision that extends to designing spaces with a soul – Tanvi Gupta’s perception of design and architecture combines aesthetics with functionality serving multiple purposes in a special centre for Autistic children.

Tanvi’s observation of society made her realize that in India all mental disabilities are grouped together and there are no special schools or dedicated activity centers for each disability separately. Tanvi decided to conduct a research, select and apply her knowledge and skills to design a center for autistic children.

Autism is a lifelong complex neurodevelopment disorder. For autistic persons, the built environment can be extremely frightening and confusing, a difficult place to negotiate and tolerate. Therefore, it is important to create spaces which are cheerful, airy, comprehensible and tolerable. Tanvi took on this challenge and her research into the world of autism gave her a new perspective. She delved deeper and aimed at safety and functionality with dimensions that are unconventional yet comforting with wider corridors, smooth curving walls, corners without sharp edges and minimal visual clutter.

“My mentors at Pearl Academy motivated me to take this up as a final topic. I was helped by them at every stage of the project. In reality it will make a huge impact on society as it will help those diagnosed with autism as well as care-givers and parents. It is a life-changing idea as such a facility with dedicated therapy sessions and a friendly atmosphere will be constructive in helping the autistics to explore their innate and unrecognized abilities and not be labelled in a derogatory manner.” says Tanvi.

Given the challenges that individuals with autism face in life, Tanvi thinks it is vital that the medical, educational and residential provisions are planned with the purpose of achieving their desired outcomes. Her design has collated all the requisite features for a progressive centre for autistic children. Tanvi’s hypothetical design for the centre for autistic children includes medical, institutional and residential facilities in a 5 story building.

Mentor
Badrinarayanan Srinivasan