LILAVATI

LAALBHAI
LIBRARY
CASE STUDY
BY PALLAVI PRABHUPATKAR
SEM3 SYBARCH
 Location: CEPT University, Kasturbhai Lalbhai
Campus, University Road, Navrangpura,
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, western India
 Area : 31000 m²
 Architect: RMA Architects / Rahul Mehrotra
 The complex is exposed brick and concrete
and has an expressed solidity and rigorous
structural logic, according to Rahul
Mehrotra, a CEPT alum and founder of RMA
Architects. His Mumbai- and Boston-based
firm was invited to build CEPT’s new Lilavati
Lalbhai Library, which opened this past
October.
 CLIMATE OF AHMEDABAD
 Ahmedabad has a tropical monsoon
climate, which is hot and dry, except in
the rainy season. Summer days are very
hot with mean maximum temperature of
41.3°C while, nights are pleasant with
mean minimum temperature of 26.3°C.
The mean maximum and minimum
temperatures in winter are 30°C and
15.4°C respectively.
CLIMATE OF AHMEDABAD
 PLANS

MEZANNINE PLAN
BASEMENT PLAN

MASTER PLAN
SECTIONS
 The library acts as a living case study of
passive climate mitigation strategies, high
on the teaching agenda at CEPT
University (formerly Centre for
Environmental Planning and Technology).
Its materials respect those of the campus’s
existing buildings, and placing three of its
six storeys underground keeps it within
their height datum.
 Centrally located, it has separate and equal
entrances on each side.
 View of the brick and concrete building with its
operable wood louvers at night:
 To demonstrate the effectiveness of the finned
facades, along with skylights on the roof, which
bring daylight deep into the library, reaching almost
to its lowest level. The sun, of course, readily
illuminates the more transparent abovegrade floors,
where the building seems to fly into the trees and
students can study amid the leaves and the birds.
 First-floor reading rooms overlook the
campus.
 The library offers different study areas:
 The library was intended as an
expression of the University’s shift
towards a more choice-based pedagogy,
and an exhibition of the reinterpretation
of climate-responsive architecture. 
 Situated at a critical central point in the
campus plan, the library naturally serves
as a pivotal linking space, which is
further emphasized by the convenient
entrances at all the cardinal points that
allow access into the building.
 Using the functional requirements of the library as an
underlying contemporary theme, the building
formally weaves itself into the pre-existing campus
narrative. Through alignments in plan with adjacent
buildings, modulation of sectional levels into and
above the earth, and honest material selection and
expression, the building respects the continuum of
existing architectural expression that has defined the
CEPT University campus for decades. At the most
fundamental performative level, the CEPT Library is a
technologically adept repository of multi-format
media, both responding to and anticipating the
current and future acquisitions of the university.
Reading rooms, formal and informal reading spaces,
individual carrels, seminar rooms, and administrative
offices are accommodated in addition to softer and
more flexible functions such as exhibition and
presentation spaces.
 The library is at once a built manifestation of the
university’s ongoing shift away from a traditionally
prescriptive pedagogy toward a choice-based curriculum,
as well as a demonstration of passive climate mitigation
strategies in architecture. Complete with an operating
manual for students, the building’s modulated, louvered
facade can be manually adjusted to allow in less light or
more ventilation in response to Ahmedabad’s severely hot
and dry climate. Located at -4 meters and -8 meters below
ground level, the book stacks, carrels, and study spaces
benefit from both plentiful and filtered natural lighting
that pours in through the louvered facade as well as the
natural cooling effect provided by the surrounding earth.
In this way, the building serves as a hands-on laboratory
for students to experiment with the principles of passive
ventilation, lighting, and traditional cooling systems in
South Asia.
 The lowest level is used as archival spaces and storage.
The core also functions as a repository for multi-format
media, to maintain the University standards of knowledg
 Lower height spaces meant to simulate intimacy
and privacy make up the internal library core, in
contrast to the other layers. Mehrotra wanted to
create the sense that students would feel the
same comfort within the building that they would
within their homes or rooms. 
 Thus, in the basement levels, he created spaces
through a variety of spaces for group work and
‘carrels’, which are specially designed nooks for
individual study. The structural elements are
integrated within the stack spaces to create a
sense of ambiguity about the depth of the building
 Some spaces are literally open to the campus, such
as an upper-level terrace that occupies the interstitial
zone between the outer and inner shells. It offers a
sheltered spot for relaxed meetings and socializing.
The informality flows out of the building too, with
people using its exterior areas in a similarly low-key
way—lounging on the deep, shaded sills of the base,
chatting with each other, and eating lunch. It is clear
that the students have taken to the library, making it
their own. And in this way, the youthful building
establishes a new centrifugal core for its storied
campus.
THANK YOU