Visitor Experience Center

Dhule

Size - 4900 sq M

The expansion proposed at the Dhule Medical College is in conjunction with the nationwide imperative to increase the spread, reach, quality and access to medicare across India.  Smaller urban centres and semi-rural communities are the thrust and focus of this endeavour.
Dhule is a district centre in North-Central Maharashtra, with a prosperous cotton-based Agri-Industrial base – (and a typically hot-dry climate).  Its Medical College founded in 1984 by the region’s prominent philanthropist and socially active A.C. Patil Family, looked at this present national-initiative as an opportunity to improve, upgrade and establish new facilities across the campus.

So while, on the one hand, a spanking new stand-alone Visitors Centre facility takes centre stage at the forefront of a redeveloped Entry Courtyard – providing a larger multi-media library and research centre, audiovisual teaching labs, cafe and interactive exhibition and meeting areas for Visitors, new parents, career counselling centre, and management areas.

The presently neglected open spaces have been consolidated into a Forecourt – that stitches together an existing memorial garden, with traffic rationalisation, student movement, outdoor pause points, an amphitheatre – all filtered through the lens of the regions hot-dry climate, local culture & community.   A vertical element – as an Axis Mundi – of a Clock Tower, synergises this connection, the thrust of which retains a balance between acknowledgement and respect for the Past with an optimism and openness for the Future.

Parallely the balance 12-acres campus undergoes an Urban Design re-vamp : of the Utilities, Storm Water System, Traffic rationalisation, re-opening of new quads., open spaces and parking.

Meanwhile, on an adjacent 7-acre campus a parallel initiative is seeing the Greenfields-development of Student Housing (UG & PG), Faculty Housing, Guest House, and Recreation Centre – once again continue to acknowledge the harsh climate & the need to develop a strong sense of community as a reinterpretation of an Indian Idiom appropriate for the present day.