2.5. SCIENCE CITY, GUWAHATI

Client : National council of Science Museum, Kolkata

Stage : On-Going Construction

Concept

• National council of science museum (NCSM) proposes to set up a science city at Guwahati

• Science city promotes to communicate principles of science and technology through interactive mode and experienced based learning

• The science city is to be conceptualized on the theme of “edutainment “to provide enhanced holding time, enable effective science learning, and an experience which is effective, impressive, enjoyable and comprehendible.

• The purpose is to serve as a resource centre for disseminating modern science and technology information with greater emphasis on Indian achievements in assam and the northeast region.

Site

• A 30 acre land has been committed and earmarked by the state government of assam for the proposed science city project at Tapesia village, Sonapur circle, Guwahati, Assam.

• The site is approximately 22 kms from the city centre and 3 km away from the NH-37

• The site is a beautiful mixture of natural contours of hills, gorges and marginal plain land and highest level is perched almost 100 m higher than the national highway, well covered by trees, shrubs and similar vegetation.

The Science city complex comprises of 4 major buildings:

Consisting of the following facilities like security, central control room, washrooms, ATMs, cloak room, gift shops and first aid rooms with adequate twowheeler parking with one vehicular access and a pedestrian access. For the pedestrian movement single tier escalator system and a wide staircase has been proposed through a funnel shaped sloping atrium, of which one escalator is for moving up and one for moving down.

The spherical dome building placed at the highest point of the site comprises of 18 meter dia. planetarium, surrounded by exhibition halls, office area, workshops, activity hall and other ancillary facilities like toilets, ticket counter, AHU room, stores, electrical room etc.

The main science exhibition complex consists of double and triple heighted atriums having access from both front and rear side. These atriums connects directly to the exhibition halls, offices, laboratories, workshops and other areas. Placed adjacent to the butterfly garden accessible from lower levels of the building.

This building is a multipurpose hall with auditorium for various future events having direct access from the gate complex and the parking area.

The work undertaken was to prepare the following:

• BIM model of the Space Odyssey building and to identify overlaps with respect to structural drawings.

• Preparing reflected ceiling plans of the gate complex, space odyssey and science discovery complex buildings as per latest structure and architecture drawings.

• Preparing fire alarm working drawings and its single line diagrams for the gate complex, space odyssey and science discovery complex buildings based on the interactions with MEP consultants.

• Preparing fire suppression working drawings for the space odyssey building based on the interactions with MEP consultants.

• Preparing HVAC working drawings for the gate complex and space odyssey building based on the interactions with MEP consultants.

3. EXPERIENCE

During my training period I was exposed to various kind of projects ranging from museum interior renovation, residential projects to large scale projects such as Science city.

In the early stage of the training, I was involved in the presentation drawings and visualisation work of competition stage projects.

Later, I was given an opportunity to prepare the DPR for Renovation of 9 galleries of National museum, Delhi. This project had a lot of stakeholders and consultants to coordinate with such as the ADG, curators, conservationists of national museum, Lighting specialists, museum display unit specialists and various relevant manufacturers for preparation of shop drawings.

This taught me the coordination among various teams working on the same project simultaneously within a tight schedule.

Another important project I worked on was the Science City, Guwahati which is on the construction stage Various online and offline meetings with the onsite engineers and contractors were held to coordinate the architecture and structure drawings for the buildings. During the preparation of electrical drawings for these buildings a number of visit to the consultants office were made to reach the deadlines as the construction was fast-paced

Along with the above experiences, I learnt about the details of drawings issued at various stages of the government projects i.e. Conceptual, presentation drawings, tender stage drawings, good for construction drawings and working drawings incorporated with the structure drawings.

Overall, I was able to understand and apply the professional aspects of an architectural practice and ways to tackle with the multiple issues faced during the conception, preparation and execution of the project on site.