Sameep Padora & Associates looked at the forms of vaulted brick ceilings found in Catalonia to develop the complex curved roof of this extension to a children's library in the Indian town of Kopargaon.
Padora's Mumbai-based practice designed the Maya Somaiya Library for the Shri Sharda English Medium School, which is located on the edge of the town in the state of Maharashtra.

The building occupies a narrow strip of land between existing buildings and the school's boundary, which looks out onto the adjacent farmland.
The site's proportions informed the building's linear floorplan, which is enveloped by a fluid roof form that appears to grow out of the ground.

"Alluding to the intuitive impetus that children have towards landscape we imagined the library building to be a formal extension of the ground," said the studio, "using brick as material for its tactility, availability as well as its utility as insulation against the strong sun." The architects were also inspired by existing geodesic structures on the school campus to explore the possibilities of a technically innovative construction solution for the new building.

After considering different building techniques including concrete shells and brick vaults, the team settled on a method for creating structural arches known as the Catalan vault.
The vaulted surfaces are found throughout the Mediterranean and are typically created by laying bricks lengthwise on top of a wooden form.

Padora and hi...