Final timber model of the rest stop with planted roofs, courtyards, pergolas and a water body

A-04 · Academic · CEPT University

Breathebetween miles

A climate-responsive highway rest stop

Studio: Design for Comfort
Location: Baroda Expressway
Type: Highway rest stop
Role: Individual studio project
Focus: Thermal comfort, passive design

Brief

A climate-responsive highway rest stop offering travellers a moment of pause. Thermal transitions, spatial rhythm, and passive strategies — ventilation, shading, orientation — shape the form.

Developed through analysis, sketching, modelling, and testing, it balances movement with stillness and public flow with personal retreat, aiming for an atmosphere of renewal along a fast-moving corridor.

Programme: Prayer room, shops, dining, lounge, game zone, sandpit, amphitheatre
Climate: Summer peaks of 43 °C
Strategies: Cross-ventilation, shading devices, water, thermal zoning

Process — research to detailing

Research

Thermal rhythms at Gandhi Ashram — a day spent recording how the amphitheatre steps, terracotta tiles, sandpit and river breeze feel from morning to evening.

Thermal rhythms at Gandhi Ashram
Concept

Experiential schemas — aromatic pathways, scintillating sun, water-animated surfaces and pockets of shadow — rather than a fixed form.

Experiential schemas
Iterations

Abstract models tested with incense smoke to trace airflow and with angular shading devices calibrated to the sun path.

Process models
Development

Ventilation shafts, voids and corridors built into the plan; thermal zones running from cool to warm; transition spaces where people pause.

Exploded isometric
Detailing

After the final jury the water body behind the prayer room was removed, the main water body enlarged, and the terrace café moved onto the kitchen block.

Revised design after the final jury