The Gurukul Learning Centre
Overview
A global consulting and advisory firm partnered with Vestian to deliver its first stand-alone learning hub in India. The 60,000 sq. ft. centre occupies the 20th floor of an office tower in Hyderabad's HITEC City. The brief called for a training floor built to international brand guidelines. Through co-creation workshops with the design team it became something different: a self-contained village organised around a central amphitheatre, beneath an installation recalling the ancient Tree of Knowledge.
Challenge
Solution
The project had to reconcile two opposing demands: an environment rooted in Indian culture and storytelling, and the technical performance expected of a global corporate training facility. Natural materials such as clay, bamboo and rattan are sensitive to moisture in a fully air-conditioned interior. The full craft palette had to be realised in six and a half months.
Vestian placed the social zone, boardrooms and cafeteria at one end of the floor and six identical training rooms at the other. The training rooms open into a single 278-seat hall through movable acoustic partitions. The amphitheatre at the centre hosts town-hall addresses by day and informal gatherings after hours, with castor-mounted furniture that reconfigures for lectures in minutes. Construction phases for curved brickwork, terracotta and woven rattan ceilings were scheduled in lock-step with services so specialist craftspeople could work in parallel. Projectors recess into ceiling pockets and AV sits behind perforated baffles that read as craft detail. Two wellness rooms and a mother's room provide quieter refuges.
Key Services
