IPS School

Vaibhav Bhatia

• Architects

In Ghaziabad: Studio Pravee transforms IPS School’s threshold into a warm and dramatic experience

photo_credit Vaibhav Bhatia — Vaibhav Bhatia

First impressions count. This one at IPS School, Ghaziabad? Timeless and rooted, with a clarity that echoes its academic spirit. For Studio Pravee, the opportunity to design a space of learning was compelling. And for architect Prashant Mallick, it was deeply personal. Returning to reset the 1800 sqft entrance of IPS Delhi, his alma mater, was less a commission and more a homecoming — with a mission.

Envisioned alongside Gaurav Das Swer, Prateek Rajput, and Aisha Chhabra, the transformation of the institution’s threshold wasn’t just about better aesthetics. The space had to do it all: set the tone for the institution’s identity, welcome prospective students and parents, and offer a waiting cocoon. With just a month to deliver and complete creative freedom (the kind only an insider-turned-architect could command), the team let the site inform every decision, with an eye on its inherent needs and dynamics. What followed was a full-bodied reimagining of flow, function, and feeling.

The triple-height lobby was always spatially significant. It opened into classrooms, the library, and the school’s everyday buzz. “I was always fascinated by its massive volume”, Prashant shares. “It was the soul of the school, but it lacked visual coherence and spatial harmony. Protruding slabs, sporadic windows, and redundant wardrobes stifled its potential.”

In response, the new design peels away what doesn’t serve. Structural clutter was stripped back to create seamless spatial alignment. Natural light and ventilation were reclaimed, and in came a calm Japandi-inspired narrative; one that echoed warmth, elegance, and hushed theatricality.

The once-sidelined reception now sets the spatial rhythm: sculpted as a circular capsule at the center, framed by columns wrapped in emerald green marble to mirror the underfoot grains, but sharper, bolder. It bridges the foyer and the waiting lounge in a way that feels less like a corridor and more like a thoughtfully curated transition.

A floor-to-ceiling custom lattice screen in mango wood stands as the pièce de résistance: visually arresting, functionally astute, and amplifying the lobby’s sense of scale. “We crafted it to carve out privacy where needed, such as shielding the admin zones and classrooms, all the while maintaining airiness and intrigue”, Aisha remarks. Dappled shadows play across the floor, thanks to the slatted structure. On the first floor, the lattice doubles as a backdrop for Rangshala—the school’s performance zone—visible through a swathe of tinted glass.

In the waiting area, seating flows in the form of curvaceous benches backed by foliage. Cut-outs in classroom doors add a playful layer of accessibility, and their circular negatives are reused as tabletops, nodding to sustainable ethos. Slit-integrated doors recede into the architecture, cleverly marking the shift from public to private.

Here, even the branding resists cliché. Restrained yet expressive, a custom wallpaper carries the institution’s persona across the central wall. Nearby, the school’s four house flags hang dramatically, fostering academic pride and referencing childhood nostalgia of Hogwarts in their 20-ft grandeur.

Above, the skylight, formerly veiled by a printed sheet, now manifests as a transparent acrylic expanse. It brings in sharp daylight and frames the sky, transforming the space into an enclosed courtyard. Flanking it, refurbished trophy walls float off mirrored backdrops: pared down, celebrated, and no longer hefty. Adjacent, CNC-etched school floor plans in oakwood become a tactile map of legacy, both literal and metaphorical.

From a Saraswati deity nestled amidst the waiting lounge to the late founder’s statue placed on a translucent floral pedestal as a poetic tribute near the entrance, every design gesture speaks of quiet reverence, reinforcing Studio Pravee’s ethos that treads on emotion and mindfulness. Design, here, is memory made tangible: a soulful bridge between legacy and renewal. The result is a space that now feels ready to welcome, inspire, and belong.