Maya Somaiya Library in Kopargaon
Sameep Padora, sP+a  
Maya Somaiya Library in Kopargaon

Maya Somaiya Library in Kopargaon

Sameep Padora, sP+a  


sP+a, the Mumbai practice headed by Sameep Padora, has enlarged a small children’s library for Sharda School in Kopargaon, a town in the largely rural Indian state of Maharashtra. Its complex undulating roof is inspired in the brick tile vault techniques of the Spaniard Rafael Guastavino (1842-1908) and the Uruguayan Eladio Dieste (1917-2000), and the curved surfaces required to build the roof were designed using the Rhino Vault software plur-in developed by the Block Research Group at ETH Zurich. Combining lessons learned from different periods and geographic locations has resulted in a 44-meter-long passable brick roof formed by three layers of 32-millimeter-thick ceramic pieces put together with mortar, and thought out as an extension of the terrain and playground.