Collaboration: Gandhara Designs Thimphu Bhutan

The design for The Academy project was based on a layered palimpsest of symbolism, culture and a way of life, overlaid with ideas of nurturing energetic young lives in the 21st century.

The 250 acre wooded undulating hillside was seen as an a extension of the hill villages of Paro, where the young people living on the campus would continue to live this simple life.

The School itself was based on a unique idea – of deconstructing the dzong. The old dzongs were seen as the touchpoints of religion and learning, but were also fortresses and bound by enclosure. The school uses the typologies of the dzong – the utse, the cells and courtyards and reconfirures them as an open learning environment wherefrom new learning could spread out across the realm.

The Sequence of functions such as the teachers training college, the school, the dining halls and the sports complex forms an east west axis flowing downhill. Laterally along terraced hill slopes the student hostels, and faculty housing are sited, much like traditional Bhutanese homes.