Situated within a 32-acre university campus in Indore, India, Prestige University brings administration offices, an auditorium, seminar halls, library facilities, classrooms, and a cafeteria into a five-level building organized around landscape, courtyards, and a stepped roof. 

Rather than presenting its full 20-metre height on approach, the building rises gradually from the north, transforming the roof into an accessible public landscape.

Reinterpreting the Indian stepwell

Designed by Sanjay Puri Architects, the project draws on the traditional Indian stepwell, a building type developed over centuries as infrastructure for water management, climate response, and social life. Stepwells were not only structures for accessing water; they were also places for gathering, rest, and social interaction.

Prestige University reinterprets this spatial principle by reversing its direction. Instead of descending toward water, a sequence of steps rises across the building to form a large communal roof.

The approximately 9,000-square-meter stepped roof contains 463 platforms for informal study, social interaction, and recreation. Together, they can also function as an outdoor auditorium for up to 9,000 people. A shallow pool and planted areas contribute to the environmental strategy, while the stepped landscape turns the roof into a shared campus space.

The project adapts principles from historical architecture without directly reproducing its forms. The stepwell provides a framework for organizing circulation, landscape, gathering, and climate response within a contemporary university building.

Passive design and resource efficiency

Prestige University adopts a low-carbon approach that integrates passive environmental design with resource-efficient building systems. The architectural form itself contributes to this strategy: landscaped courtyards, north-facing openings, varied sectional volumes, and a continuous diagonal indoor street support natural daylight and ventilation, reducing dependence on artificial lighting and mechanical cooling.

The project has been assessed under the EDGE (Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies) system, recording 28.46 percent energy savings, 59.08 percent water savings, and 31 percent embodied-carbon savings.

Functional spaces are interspersed with landscaped courtyards that bring indirect daylight into the building at each level.

The north-facing openings and landscaped courtyards draw on principles found in traditional Indian architecture, helping reduce dependence on artificial lighting and air conditioning in response to Indore’s hot climate, where temperatures reach approximately 30°C to 40°C for around eight months of the year.

Varied sectional volumes, interspersed with landscape, create different spatial conditions throughout the building.

Organizing learning and social space

Different functions are organized across the building’s five levels. Shared facilities, including the cafeteria, auditorium, and administration spaces, are located on the ground floor for direct access.

Library facilities occupy the first floor and are connected by a bridge over the diagonal indoor street. Classrooms are located on the second floor, with open courts providing spillover space for recreation. Tiered classrooms occupy the third floor, while administrative and faculty facilities are located on the fourth floor.

This sectional organization creates a range of environmental and social conditions. Open courts, terraces, bridges, and landscaped spaces connect formal learning areas with less defined spaces for gathering and recreation.

Material choices

The most significant documented embodied carbon strategy is the use of cellular lightweight concrete blocks for both exterior and interior walls, rather than the conventional solid-brick construction used as the EDGE baseline.

The exterior walls are specified as 200 mm cellular lightweight concrete blocks with a reported U-value of 0.90 W/m²·K. This approach contributes to both thermal performance and reduced embodied carbon.

Reinforced concrete slabs, ceramic tile finishes, aluminum window frames, and glazing also form part of the building’s material palette, meaning that the project reduces rather than eliminates the use of carbon-intensive materials.

Solar protection through a ventilated envelope

The east, west, and south sides of the building are wrapped in a ventilated brick screen that limits direct solar exposure while allowing daylight and air movement, helping reduce solar heat gain and cooling demand.

Flexibility beyond the original program

Prestige University was developed as a new building, so adaptive reuse of an existing structure was not part of the project. Its potential for future adaptation instead lies in the flexibility of its spatial organization.

The stepped terraces, open courts, landscaped platforms, and diagonal indoor street are not limited to a single use. They can support different forms of learning, gathering, recreation, and social interaction as patterns of university life change.

The building therefore incorporates a degree of functional flexibility, particularly within its shared and open spaces.