It’s a unique red-brick, open-air, greenery-surrounded structure on the outskirts of Puducherry that has for 10 years not only offered residents of surrounding villages an aesthetic space for community meetings but also given the community a reason to believe in itself. Now, the Sharanam Centre for Rural Development designed by Manchester-based architect Jateen Lad for Sarvam, a unit of Sri Aurobindo Society, has been awarded the Royal Institute of British Architects International Award for Excellence 2024. Considered one of architecture’s highest global accolades, the award celebrates buildings from around the world that demonstrate out-of-the-box thinking, design excellence and social impact.
Sharanam is among the first modern buildings in India to receive this recognition. “This award shows the world of architecture is moving away from celebrating the tallest, glitziest buildings to recognising the unconventional, to look at communities, identify their issues and see if they can be addressed through architecture,” says Lad. Built with materials sourced locally (such as red soil bricks), zero waste and greenery all around, Sharanam has featured as a case study in the UN Environment Programme’s ‘State of Play of Green Buildings in India’.
When he started work on the project in 2009, the aim was “to create a place of dignity, beauty and tranquility for the poorest of the rural poor – with the same high quality detail design and workmanship achieved in luxury.
