CEPT University architects unveil blueprint for Olympic Village on Sabarmati riverfront to study viability

“The city as we see it today is an aggregate of what has been built over a long time, with parts retained, parts demolished, parts rebuilt – over and over again. It is an ongoing process that constantly redefines what the city is. This process has been going on for over 600 years in the case of Ahmedabad. Who builds the city? Many actors. Many forces. Kings and queens, traders and merchants, ordinary people and communities, donors and philanthropists, to name some, in the old times. Add to that the Government and municipalities, corporate houses and hoteliers, industries and medical establishments, developers and builders, to name some, in the present context. Who builds the houses has been changing over time. In the old city of Ahmedabad, most of the houses were probably built by individuals and families,” said Neethu Mathew, a co-tutor at the university.

“Later, communities and people with similar interests came together and built housing societies, industries built staff housing, philanthropists built disaster relief housing, educational institutes built students’ hostels (which could be called short-term housing), hoteliers built hotels (which could be called ultra short-term housing),” she added.

The Novo Ville project was recently exhibited at CEPT University, Ahmedabad.

Mathew said this role had in the recent past been taken over by developers who build housing for users.

Neeraja Bhalerao, one of the students, told The Indian Express that they worked individually as well as a group to understand and answer the question on whether an Olympic Village could be visualised as an extension of the city’s fabric, part of which caters to specific short-term requirements, should be later used for different requirements of the city dwellers, could be merged with natural fabric, or should augment the supply of housing for the city.

“Ahmedabad, India’s first Unesco World Heritage City, now looks toward the Olympic Games of 2036 with quiet ambition and bold conviction. They require not only spectacle but space, not only pride but planning. And in that moment, a single question begins to pulse at the centre of Ahmedabad: Where will the city hold this moment, and what will remain once the flame has faded? It is within this question that Novo Ville emerges. Not as a temporary dormitory destined for dismantling, but as a city within a city, a living extension of Ahmedabad’s evolving urban fabric. Novo Ville is imagined not as logistics, but as legacy,” Sohan Nilkanth, a visiting faculty member at CEPT University, told The Indian Express.

Nilkanth, who is also a practising architect, said, “Rather than searching for adaptive re-use later on, it may be seen as regular housing which will be used temporarily during the Olympics to meet all requirements of the Games, and later it would merge back with the regular housing with minimum modifications. Also, using the waterfront for a minimum of traffic disruptions, water transportation through boats as an alternative mode of transport has also been suggested,” he added.

A teaching assistant with the project, Chinmayee Mokshagundam, feels tents are not a solution, although they can be dismantled. “The visitors have to be provided with a better-level of accommodation, including proper facilities and amenities to be able to stay comfortably, practice, and perform well at the games. Permanent accommodation, appropriately designed, would work best, but it cannot be dismantled like tents. Its planned use after the games must be considered for it to be viable. The design has tried to balance immediate games use (high density, functional housing), post-games legacy use (conversion into sustainable urban housing/community), along with the city and its expansion—housing-based design models,” Mokshagundam said.

The students looked at least three examples of how apartments are reconfigured (from athlete dorms to permanent flats), along with at least one example of what happens to dining halls, plaza, and sports facilities.

At least three students from the project that The Indian Express spoke to showed how the housing for the games could be reused as residential flats.

“The objective was to design compact unit types for single or double occupancy that could be attached, repeated, and clustered in multiple ways to optimise spatial use while maintaining essential qualities of good housing. With small adjustments or by combining one or two adjacent units—these single or two-person dwellings can transition into larger, multi-member living spaces. This embedded flexibility demonstrates how modest architectural decisions can gradually build a more adaptable and resilient housing system,” said Devesh Bapat, who along with other students Jay Muni and Khushal Navawal, worked on the project.

Their other colleagues were Kumara Valli Alluru, Maitreyee Bakare, Milan Mathew, Sandra Lal, Saranya Tumuluru, Sejal Ranka, Sreenidhi V, and Zenulabedin Sunesara.

1924: the first Olympic Village, Paris

According to Neeraja Bhalerao, a master’s student, the Olympic Village as a concept has evolved alongside global history. Before the 1920s, athletes were housed in hotels, boarding schools, or military barracks. Paris 1924 introduced a rudimentary “village” of wooden huts near the stadium, but Los Angeles 1932 had the first modern purpose-built Olympic Village, with dining halls, a post office, and medical facilities. “Berlin 1936 expanded the model dramatically with large-scale planning, creating dormitories, dining halls, and training spaces—a blueprint for later games,” she said.

Re-imagining the Olympic Village, and how

-Rather than imagining it as an exotic, specific urban insert for a special temporary purpose, it may be seen as a part of the natural expansion and growth of the city to augment the housing stock.

– It may be seen as regular housing that will be used temporarily during the Olympics to meet all Olympic requirements. After the Olympics, it would be merged with regular housing with minimum modifications.

-Rather than considering other modes of dealing with this, it may be seen as a developer-driven project, like most other housing being provided by the developers in the city.

-Instead of a single developer, the total site and Olympic requirements could be divided between 12 developers (since there are twelve students in the studio), each student representing one developer.

-Each developer would develop one site to include typical apartments of two categories, as well as Olympics accommodation, part of which must be converted to other types of apartments for regular use. It is not viable to include the very large number of single accommodation units required for the Olympics in a regular housing project. Modifications, conversion, or adaptive reuse is unavoidable.

-Because developers are being forced to include a certain number of small apartments and plan adaptation for reuse, they may be given some concessions in terms of currently applicable development regulations, which are already under consideration. At the same time, because they are given some concessions, they will be required to consider urban-level and other larger issues that they must accommodate.

Design challenges, approach to design

-Students designed the Olympic Village as per the norms and standards laid down by the Olympics committee, including various categories (single room + toilet, room + toilet shared by two, etc.).

-Space earmarked for Village Plaza (administration and management, banks, post offices, shops, etc.), but these facilities were not detailed by students.

-As a group, the students arrived at a manifesto which addresses city-level and larger issues. The manifesto also took a stand on related issues like maximum floor heights, public access to each site, greens, and environmental issues, and similar control mechanisms.

-Each student gave a design proposal for one plot, working within the provisions of the manifesto, to provide regular apartments for sale and accommodation for the Olympics planned for adaptive reuse.

-The twelve adjoining plots created the Olympic Village during the games. After the games, the city will have 12 housing projects.

Additional learning and challenges for students

-Recognising and addressing the urban/city-level and other larger issues (river front, environmental issues, green zones, circulation, parking traffic / pedestrian zones, etc.) as a group.

-What to offer to the city as a whole after the games are over.

-Incorporating concepts for adaptive reuse at the planning stage, which is a major additional design challenge.

What is the city’s gain at the end of the day?

-Leave behind a unique creation, symbolic of India’s potential for excellence, and projecting it to the international community that will visit the city during the Olympics and later.

-High-quality housing stock, consisting of different apartments of different sizes, including community facilities.

-Traffic-free parks, playfields, and recreation and sports facilities for the city as a whole accommodated in a green spine that could be made available to the city dwellers.

-Another green spine along the river front with eateries, garden restaurants, and recreation spaces along the riverfront.