Illangarkal School

Auroville as part of its regional development program undertakes several activities in partnership with local village bodies like the women’s self-help groups, youth clubs, adult literacy program, vocational and livelihood skills training and rural health centres. Ilangarkal School is the hub for some of these programs with class rooms, workshop spaces,  crafts centre, library, dining hall, kitchen, administration block, computer training centres and two dormitories for the resident students.

The campus is designed as a ‘Mandala’ around a stepped pond cum amphitheatre. The compressed earth blocks used for the buildings are made from the excavation of this pond. Roofs of the various blocks are turfs that collect rainwater and channel it to this pond. During the monsoon, the pond is a brimming water body framed by the buildings and in the summer it becomes the outdoor multipurpose learning and gathering space during the evening and night adult literacy program. The earth buildings clustered tightly together also re-imagines the central courts of the Tamil Nadu temple complexes with its multiple pavilions of worship within a walled compound.