Bellary Engineering College, Bellary

Bellary Engineering College is an institution which has been existing for many years at Bellary in Karnataka, owned and administered by private individuals. The existing structures almost completely fill up the site which abuts a highway. The proprietors of this institution wanted to construct a new-age addendum, “the Millenium Block”, to the existing built form on their site to accommodate additional requirements. These included classrooms, lecture halls and other amenities for MBA, MCA and an auditorium and space for administrative functions.

These requirements were fitted by Kalayojan into their institute design quite elegantly despite the constraints of a narrow site, further narrowed halfway through the project due to a road widening scheme. The building has been visualized in a post-modern façade of steel and glass. It takes inspiration from the fact that the steel for the “bird’s nest” stadium of the Beijing Olympics was supplied from this small city of Bellary. The interior has been painstakingly detailed and cut outs and wide open spaces provided where only a corridor doubly loaded with classrooms on either side seemed to be able to fit in. A grand 500 seater auditorium forms the climax to this modern piece of institutional architecture.

Bellary Engineering College, a privately owned institution functioning since many years, felt the need for a new-age addendum to the existing structures on site to fit in the excess requirements of an MBA and MCA institute with administrative departments and students’ facilities. This ‘Millennium Block’, as it has come to be known, was earlier proposed by us to be a state-of-the art glass and steel structure, in tune with the status of Bellary as the city of steel, the supplier of steel for the Bird’s Nest stadium of the Beijing Olympics, but later built of conventional concrete and masonry construction. The slightly staggered cutouts take in day light from the top to light up the corridors on all floors. They also form interesting overlooking spaces at various levels.

Bellary Engineering College building was earlier planned as a steel and glass structure with all the rooms place around generous central open spaces carved out of the block despite the constraints of a narrow plot. Section Fourth.

The plot being further narrowed due to a road widening project lead to the building being squeezed even more than before and slanted to make it parallel to abutting highway. The challenge of retaining the ethos of the original design was satisfactorily met when ample central cutouts could be maintained while retaining the required sizes of the rooms.