The Learning Community (TLC) is a school of Auroville that aims at providing Integral Education to its students, based on the ideals of Auroville and the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. It is an alternative schooling method that seeks to go beyond the common understanding of hierarchy, competitive learning and running after success, and instead, manifest an education that aims at an integral development of the individual being.
The number of students in the school steadily grew over the years and has now reached a point where the old, shabby temporary structures no longer met the spatial needs of the TLCians.
A new building was urgently needed, and that needed money to be built. When we volunteered our help in the architecture area, the school had already come up with a basic idea and design of what they needed. A few adjustments were made to this original idea, and a building design emerged within a few weeks. The frame of the building is steel, sitting on RCC columns on RCC footings. The floor plan is simple, designed to be either a big open interactive space, or closed with sliding doors to form two classrooms and a central common meeting area. The first floor houses a small office space and a library. The roof is GI metal sheet with insulation below, resting on wooden rafters. The walls are a combination of Wattle and Daub, wooden louvres, SS mesh and glass.
The project has recently received funding through the Sri Aurobindo International Institute for Educational Research (SAIIER).
The construction of the building is completed.