At the Talegaon campus of DY Patil University in Pune, India, the Mumbai office (Whitby Wood Pritamdasani) is working on the structural design of three new buildings ranged around the existing cricket ground — a 1200-student Design School to the west, a 1200-student Technical School to the north, and a 3000-student K12 School to the north-east.

DY Patil University was founded in 2002 in Navi Mumbai. It is rated in the top 3% of universities in India by the country’s National Assessment & Accreditation Council (NAAC). The existing Talegaon campus includes the College of Engineering and was masterplanned by Serie Architects, designers of the current project.

The three new buildings share a similar approach to construction. The site is hilly but the soil bearing capacity great enough to allow the use of pad footings. The frames are concrete slab and beam with integrated services shafts and openings, and the facades aluminium frame plus glazing.

The Design School will cater for architecture and town planning graduates, and is on four levels plus two basements, which house studio space, a library and the computer lab. Exhibition space is included at ground floor level.

The Technical School is designed for engineering graduate study. It consists of three blocks, each set at a different ground level and with different plan geometry. The blocks are connected by a narrow bridge.

The K12 School poses the challenge of supporting six floors of teaching spaces and terraces on a 16m transfer girder. The area supported covers almost 40% of the building’s footprint. Three basement levels accommodate music rooms, teaching spaces, a multipurpose hall plus a courtyard. Students from primary to higher grades will attend, and the school is to be affiliated with Cambridge University in the UK.