Chandigarh city’s modernist legacy finds expression in the skylit corridors of the CGC Student Hostel

The student hostel for the Chandigarh Group of Colleges, located within a twenty-five-acre campus in Landran, a semi-urban area close to Mohali, Punjab, is a testament to Chandigarh city’s modernist legacy. Repurposing the area for a bus yard that was previously considered unfit for construction, Charged Voids developed a simple triangular plan that makes the most of the oddly shaped site, while playing with levels to craft multiple volumes.

A central sunken court forms a skylit atrium that is interjected by bridges at multiple levels. The primary idea was to step away from the enclosed vocabulary of the rest of the campus buildings by keeping the hostel building free of boundary walls in an attempt to create covered recreational spaces that are accessible to all. Corbusier’s brutalist, modernist influences can be found in the sculptural quality, and the overall pared-down material palette and colour choices of the hostel building, while daylight admitted through the skylights determines the sensorial experience of the hostel, lending it a palpably spiritual identity. A space led by its experience as much as it is by budget restraints, the design of the CGC Student Hostel is an exercise in frugality with the aim of enhancing the quality of students’ living spaces.