The design of the new cafeteria is developed around the existing coconut trees. All the coconut trees were retained and the entire structure, built around it. It includes dining spaces for students, staffs and guests, kitchen and store area and other shops carefully zoned around open cut outs. The design focuses on student collaboration and social interaction, hence informal dinning spaces and open air theatre have been established around an open planning ground floor.
It was a great surprise to see a lush green coconut grove provided to us as the site for designing a student’s cafeteria to accommodate a floating crowd of about 5000 Students. That’s when the challenge was looked at as an advantage in design. We decided to Design the cafeteria without removing a single Coconut Tree from the site! The concept was evolved from a “Banyan Tree Festival Feast”, the next interesting fact added to the Design was that there are no “free standing Furniture” in the design. The seating was done as a cut-out on the floor and allowed the students to sit the way they wanted. The feature “scribble wall” allows the students to do their own sketches and paintings on the surface. The low ceiling of only 8’ 0” makes the students sit in the floor pits immediately for visual comfort. Having completed this Design 14 years ago, it still remains a happy place for students enjoying their everyday snacks and Birthday celebrations- without any maintenance problems.