No. 130 · Education & Research
Soban Singh Jeena University
Almora, Uttarakhand
- Location
- Almora, Uttarakhand
- Client
- BRIDCUL
- Site area
- 25 acres
- Project value
- ₹50 crore
- Type
- Residential and affiliating University
- Sector
- Education & Research
A new residential University for the Kumaon hills at Syalidhar, near Almora: teaching and residential blocks under pitched roofs, set on terraces along the contours of a wooded slope.
About the project
Soban Singh Jeena University is a residential and affiliating University for the Kumaon hills of Uttarakhand. It came into existence on 14 August 2020, carved out of Kumaun University, Nainital, where it had been a Campus for more than four decades. Its jurisdiction covers the Colleges of the Almora, Bageshwar, Champawat and Pithoragarh districts. The new Campus, on a 25-acre site at Syalidhar near Almora, was designed for BRIDCUL at a cost of ₹50 crore.
Building on the slope
The site is a steep, wooded hillside. Rather than levelling it, the plan sets the buildings on terraces cut along the contours, so that each block sits on its own shelf of ground and the forest between them is left in place. A single road winds up the slope in loops and links the terraces.
A hill vocabulary
The blocks are three and four storeys high, with plain walls under pitched red roofs, in the manner of the hill towns of Kumaon. Larger and smaller blocks are grouped in clusters along the road, each looking out over the valley.
Education & Research
