Many university buildings treat their rooftops as mechanical afterthoughts, a surface area for HVAC units and waterproofing membranes that no one is implied to see. Sanjay Puri Architects inverted that logic totally at Eminence University in Indore, turning a 97,000-sq-ft roofscape into a stepped public landscape that seats 9,000 people. The five-story building below it nearly reads as facilities for what happens above.
The roofing is made up of 463 individual stepped platforms that increase diagonally from the structure’s northern point, with landscaped yards breaking up the geometry at periods to enable natural light into the floorings below. The formal reference is India’s historic stepwells, below ground water storage structures developed in between the 7th and 19th centuries throughout western India. Stepwells like Rajasthan’s Chand Baori were never ever purely utilitarian; they functioned as gathering spaces for social and spiritual life. Sanjay Puri’s analysis raises that very same dual-purpose logic above ground, and the school has currently used the roofscape for lectures, games, and a flag hoisting on India’s Independence Day.
Designer: Sanjay Puri Architects
< img src="// www.w3.org/2000/svg%22%20viewBox=%220%200%201280%20960%22%3E%3C/svg%3E"data-src ="https://www.yankodesign.com/images/design_news/2026/03/prestige-university/prestige_university_yanko_design_03.jpg"alt= ""width="1280"height ="960"/ > Indore’s environment required more from the style than an engaging shape. Temperatures sit between 86 ° F and 104 ° F for most of the year, and the stepped form itself lowers the vertical blood circulation load needed to cool the building. A constant diagonal indoor street running the length of the ground floor drives natural ventilation through internal spaces, while perforated glass fiber reinforced concrete screens cover the eastern, western, and southern elevations to restrict heat gain. A shallow pool at the base of the primary structure adds passive cooling. None of these strategies are novel in isolation, however layering all of them into a single structure shows an environment response that surpasses token gestures.
The 32-acre campus is developed for 3,000 trainees. Ground-floor programs consists of a 700-seat snack bar, the shaded yards, and an indoor auditorium. A first-floor library features a bridge that covers the passage below. Forty-five class occupy the 2nd and 3rd floors, with faculty offices and administration on the fourth.
Product options remain local and direct. Clay brick cladding covers the concrete and fly ash brick structure on the exterior. Inside, exposed concrete couple with Indian sandstone floor covering, producing interiors that feel grounded without relying on used surfaces to make warmth. Sanjay Puri Architects, now 34 years into practice, has a deep portfolio of climate-responsive work throughout India. Status University presses that family tree further by making the passive strategy legible; the stepped roofscape is not hidden engineering but the structure’s most public face. Whether that openness survives the wear of 3,000 students and Indore’s punishing summertimes will figure out if the concept scales beyond spectacle.
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