From http://www.charlierose.com/guests/anil-agarwal a interview by a New York area PBS station. (He talks about Vedanta University at 3:20.)
February 24th, 2008
Following is an excerpt from http://www.cnu.org/node/1875.
The Congress for the New Urbanism announces the recipients of its 2008 Charter Awards, the annual prize honoring the best of the New Urbanism. The 14 winning professional submissions and one student/faculty submission were chosen by a seven-member jury of leading urbanists last month, with Andrés Duany serving as chair. In fulfilling and advancing the principles of the Charter of the New Urbanism, the projects reveal the power of well-executed urbanism to strengthen communities, achieve broader sustainability and create places worthy of respect and admiration.
The awarded projects are found in the U.S. and four other countries: the Bahamas, India, Saudi Arabia, and Scotland. Among US regions, the Southeast again had a strong showing, followed by the Midwest. All but one of the awarded neighborhood- and block-scale projects in the USA are built or under construction, and none are on true greenfield sites. Several projects directly address quality affordable housing design, including one HOPE VI development from Chicago and a national pattern book for affordable houses. Several projects bring well-executed, innovative housing types to unexpected locations, like small Southern cities.
Duany and other jurors said winning projects demonstrated excellence, often in the face of difficult contexts or other challenges requiring ingenuity to overcome. The awards will be presented on April 5, 2008 in conjunction with the 16th Congress for the New Urbanism in Austin. See images and descriptions of all awardees.
Following are some details from the page http://www.cnu.org/node/1760.
Location: Orissa, India. University
Charter Award Winner:
In India today there is only one seat for every 10,000 university applicants, and those lucky enough to find a seat have limited choices of single disciplinary universities. To meet this unprecedented demand, the project’s design sought to create a multi-disciplinary University for 10,000 students.
As designers their aspiration was to create a campus master plan which would reflect not only the goals and philosophies of this new University, but would be Indian in spirit. The result of these intentions led to a simple ‘parti’ of two overlapping circles inscribed within an oval. The circles represent the balance between the two major areas of discipline, Arts & Humanities and Science & Technology. Intersecting these circles in a spoke are areas for housing and student life, and surrounding these forms are professional schools, a medical school, and hospital. At the core is a crescent open space which is the heart of the University, demonstrating a strong focus on the creation of a sustainable, pedestrian-oriented campus that fully embraces the principles of responsible development.
A total of approximately 500 buildings on 280 sites are identified within the university precinct to accommodate the anticipated student population, all of which will be no more than 5 stories, and have green roofs. Several localized sewer treatment plants will provide grey water for irrigation and toilet flushing and several utility pad sites for water storage, electrical transformers, pumps and cooling towers have been identified to maximize efficiency of utility services.
Transect Zone(s): T6 core.
Status: Plan Approved
Guiding Charter Principle(s): Principle 1, Principle 3, Principle 5, Principle 6, Principle 7, Principle 8
Project or Plan’s Scale: Region
Features: Affordable/subsidized housing, Civic buildings & parks, Green buildings, Live/work, Transit oriented development.
Land area (in acres): 8700
Total built area (in sq. ft.):
Total project cost (in local currency):
Retail area (in sq. ft.):
Office area (in sq. ft.):
Industrial area (in sq. ft.):
Number of hotel units:
Number of residential units (include live/work):
Civic uses (type and size): University, Townships, Exhibition Ground, Airport, Resort, Agricultural Research, Horticulture, Athletics & Sports Facilities, Utility Substations, Conference Center
Parks & green space (in acres): 440
Project team designers: Ayers/Saint/Gross Inc, Architects+Planners
Project team developers: Ayers/Saint/Gross Inc, Architects+PlannersPrevious site status:
Starting/Ending date of construction/implementation: 2009 –
Location: Orissa, India.
February 24th, 2008
Following is an excerpt from a report in Pioneer.
The State Government has so far been provided 1418.10 acre of land to the management of the upcoming Vedanta University near Puri. Out of this 264.27 acre are Government land and the rest 1153.83 acres of land are private land, said Revenue Minister Manmohan Samal.
In response to a question of BJD member Baidhar Mallick, Revenue Minister Samal said 1257 acres of land have been acquired from the 13 mouzas. "Government will acquire another 443.26 acre of government land and 4,288.37 acre of private lands for this purpose," he said. He further informed the House that 707.52 acre of lands and 5545.38 acres of private land private lands are there in the 18 mouza of this area.
February 20th, 2008
Adam Gross, design principal at the Baltimore architectural firm Ayers Saint Gross, discussed the design of Vedanta University with Tom Hall the Arts and Culture Contributor for Maryland Morning with Sheilah Kast and the host of Choral Arts Classics on January 25 2008.
Some of the new details about the university that I learned from listening to this broadcast are as follows:
February 10th, 2008
The following is from http://www.aiabalt.com/0_committees/0_DesignAwards/DesignAwards.htm.
Vedanta University Master Plan –UNBUILT
Orissa, India
Ayers/Saint/Gross
Contact: Adam Gross, FAIA, 410.347.8500
“The scope and scale of this proposed university master plan is impressive. The conceptual thought to develop this complex program has been handled well. The design process makes it comprehensible. The unusual integration in India of the arts and humanities with science and engineering has been carefully planned with the use of radial and grid systems. It is well thought out and not contrived.”
January 15th, 2008
The following is from http://vedanta.edu.in/news/?p=8.
Subject : Expression of Interest for the planning and design of A 1600 bed teaching Hospital and Medical college
Introduction
In 2006, the Anil Agarwal Foundation entered in to an MOU with the Orissa Government to set up the Vedanta University, a ‘not-for-profit’ initiative along the picturesque Puri- Konark marine drive in Orissa. The University and associated townships are on a 6300 acre campus, master planned by Ayers Saint Gross, the notable university architects and planners from Baltimore, Maryland USA.
The university is planned to have an ultimate strength of 100,000 students of International and Indian backgrounds studying around 95 diverse streams of learning. The university is planned to start intake of its first batch of students in 2009.
As part of the first Phase, we will build about 2.5 million square feet of academic buildings which include Humanities, Science, Engineering, Architecture, Business and Law colleges, the mail University library along with residences for about 3500 students and 700 faculty and staff. In Phase 1, we will also build the hospital with residences for staff, with the Medical College to follow subsequently.
Project
The hospital is envisaged as a 1600 bed teaching hospital which will be build in phases. An initial phase may comprise about 250 to 300 beds. The hospital should have super specialty streams which are needed both in the region and nationally. The hospital will have both paying and nonpaying patients, with the exact mix to be determined by the business model of building a self sustaining hospital.
Keeping all this in mind, we seek experts who can advise us on the way forward to make our Chairman’s vision into reality by helping us
a) Solidify our mission statement and also develop a business model for the same.
b) Provide us with detailed project report and space programs for the hospital and medical college.
c) Review the architectural plan for functionality and adherence to program.
d) Additionally we are seeking hospital design consultants who will develop building concepts and detailed architectural, structural and MEP drawings for tender. This would be a separate component.
Kindly let us know if your are interested in participating in this project. Interested parties may send us details of past performance in similar projects along with a list of key personals by 30th October 2007.
Thanking you
for Anil Agarwal Foundation
C. Joseph
Associate GM (Projects)
PS. Kindly send your reply along with necessary documents to
VU / Hospital / 10 /07
Vedanta University Project
C/o Anil Agarwal Foundation
232, Solitaire park
Andheri -Kurla link road.
Chakala, Andheri East.
Mumbai 400093
Phone +91 22 40058000
Fax +91 22 40058021
www.vedanta.edu.in
December 9th, 2007
In a recent statement to Outlook (Thanks to Abi for the pointer) Prof. CNR Rao, Chairperson of SAC-PM and responsible for for many good things in Bangalore (including the recent Indian Institute of Nanotechnology), is seemingly critical of the IT industry but what really comes out of the article is that he wants the IT biggies in Banaglore to set up a Harvard/Stanford type private university in Bangalore. Perhaps he has tried to convince them of this earlier, and this public posturing is a last ditch effort in that direction. Following is an excerpt from that article.
IT people have a responsibility that they are yet to fulfil. If they’re making so much money, why shouldn’t they create an outstanding private university equivalent to Stanford or Harvard? Had they done something like that they would have compensated for the other problems they have created. If IT people are making money, what do I get out of it, unless I am employed in Infosys with Narayana Murthy? The trouble is, we have given them a lot, but have got nothing in return.
In this context, it is interesting that the people of Orissa do not quite realize the value of the proposed Vedanta University, whose stated goal is to be a Stanford/Harvard type university and plus it seems to have a sound financial plan behind it that includes a $1 billion pledge by Mr. Anil Agarwal. Because of the roadblock created by some in Orissa, the Vedanta University plan has not moved as fast as they wanted it. If such road blocks and delays continue, and other such plans come up in other parts of India, Vedanta University, and Orissa will lose the first movers’ advantage.
Orissa has a golden opportunity with Vedanta University; I hope they do not mess it up.
December 9th, 2007
| From the SEPTEMBER 2007 issue of New Urban News
A campus for India, shaped like a mandala |
 Courtesy of Ayers Saint Gross |
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Vedanta, the largest new university in the world, will have a plan that draws from Indian spiritual traditions. Dhiru Thadani, lead architect-planner at Ayers Saint Gross (ASG), has been spending about one week per month in India, spearheading the master-planning of the approximately 10,000-acre project. Thadani and his team have produced a remarkable, complex layout, one that suggests an elaborate mandala. FITTING THE LOCAL CLIMATE This article is available in the September 2007 issue of New Urban News, along with images and many more articles not available online. Subscribe or order the individual issue. |
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November 18th, 2007
Following is an excerpt from a report in Statesman.
Vedanta University project and Anil Agrawal Foundation launched a mobile healthcare unit at Chhaitana Kabirajpur village under Gop block in Puri district yesterday.
It was launched by Mr Trilochan Baral, chief district medical officer (CDMO), Puri.
Mr Prashant Hota, general manager (CSR), Vedanta Orissa projects was present on this occasion.
The ambulance van of this mobile healthcare unit will pay weekly visits to the areas to be affected by the Vedanta University project and the nearby villages under Puri Sadar, Gop and Satyabadi blocks in a phased manner accompanied by doctors, pharmacists, nurses and other health workers.
1 comment November 18th, 2007
Stanford Daily has an article on Vedanta university with the title "Indian College to be modeled after Stanford." It talks about the vision behind Vedanta University and asks Indian students in Stanford if they would prefer Vedanta University over Stanford. Most students say they would prefer Stanford; this is understandable as Vedanta University does not exist yet. Here is an excerpt from that article:
Revti Gupta ‘09 was impressed by Vedanta’s high expectations.
“It is high time someone took action to establish a world class institute in India that is not just IIT and IIM,” she said, referring to the top technology and management schools in the South Asian country, home to nearly one-sixth of the world’s people.
However, like Mehra and Forbes, Gupta said she would still prefer to travel to California to study.
“I would still come to Stanford because it provides a new perspective and an immersion in a cultural experience for me that I would not have been exposed to in India.”
Despite the lack of enthusiasm from students, Linda Hess, co-director of the Center for South Asia at Stanford, emphasized the positive impact of the initiative in the long-run.
“While Indian students who are at Stanford today may not be tempted to go to a university that’s ‘like Stanford’ in India,” she said in an email to The Daily, “the creation of a place like Vedanta University is part of a much bigger picture — the picture called ‘globalization.’
“The assumptions that used to be made about the sources of economic and intellectual power, about who is ‘ahead’ and who is ‘behind,’ are being turned around,” Hess added. “If the vision of its founders is realized, Vedanta University will attract top students from across the globe to India for the same reasons that Stanford is able to do that now.”.
October 24th, 2007
Baltimore Sun writes that the master plan for Vedanta University, designed by Ayers Saint Gross, wins the 2007 AIA Baltimore design awards. The award celebration will be today, Oct 19th 2007, at 6:30 PM at Stewart’s Building, 230 Lexington Street at Howard in Baltimore, MD. (The AIA Baltimore design award web page says that: "Award-Winning projects will be on display at the Baltimore City Hall Rotunda November 13 – December 7, and thereafter with all entries, in the AIABaltimore Gallery through the end of the year.")
The Ayers Saint Gross web page now also has the Vedanta University Humanities building listed under "On the boards" category. About the Humanities building, it says the following:
The Humanities Program was written by Ayers/Saint/Gross Inc. in April 2007. The building was programmed as 11,731 gross square meters with 7,273 net assignable square meters. This is based on an enclosed, conditioned shell in accordance with standard U.S. methods of calculation.
October 19th, 2007
Following are some excerpts from that report by Shailaja Neelakantan.
… Agarwal’s proposed Vedanta University is expected to be different. Undergraduates will study diverse subjects on the way to earning degrees, rather than focus exclusively on one discipline, as is typical at Indian universities. "An engineering student will be able to study literature or economics if he wants to, like in the US," says C.V. Krishnan, chief executive of the university project. Vedanta University plans to offer undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programmes in a huge variety of disciplines. The first phase of the university’s growth, to about 3,000 students, is scheduled to begin next year. In 2023, when it is destined for completion, Vedanta University will house 100,000 students, as well as 40,000 faculty and staff members.
…Nevertheless, he has huge ambitions for Vedanta University. According to promotional materials, Vedanta will boast faculty members and students from all over the world and will produce "tomorrow’s Nobel laureates, Olympic champions and community leaders." Agarwal and his public relations staff talk a good game – he has even likened himself to Leland Stanford, an American who made his fortune building railways in the US and founded Stanford University.
…Still, for Vedanta University’s supporters, its sheer scope is what makes it worth backing. "It could set a new revolutionary benchmark in higher education – and just the force of that argument should allow this project to go ahead," insists Pratap Bhanu Mehta, chief executive of New Delhi’s Centre for Policy Research.
As it is, the country’s 350 public universities serve only seven per cent of its 18- to 24-year-olds, a rate that is half that of other Asian countries. If Vedanta University succeeds, it could stem the rising tide of Indian students seeking an education overseas.
…
The campus
Is being designed by an American architect in Baltimore who has developed Duke, Carnegie-Mellon and Johns Hopkins universities in the US. It will be built on 8000 acres of land near the Puri-Konark marine drive in Orissa state and the buildings will be arranged in the form of two overlapping circles. The Orissa government has begun to build a four-lane expressway from the new campus to the international airport which is being constructed near the state capital, Bhubaneswar, 70km away. A railway station will also be located on campus. The area will be developed into a large university township that will house a permanent population of 500,000 in addition to the 100,000 students.
Any more?
Yes, there will also be a research and development park serving as an incubator for spin-off companies. Eventually, it is hoped that this will evolve into a large research-cum-education complex resembling Silicon Valley, the economic hub that surrounds Stanford.
Will it work?
The university system in India is under financial strain and is not known for its research strength, except in one or two areas, or for the quality of its academics. Although it has large numbers of keen and well-prepared students, India is not a global player and, unlike China, is not making super-human efforts to build up a stellar university system by recruiting retired or semi-retired university presidents and other staff from the US. That is why Indians spend large sums on getting a good higher education overseas. And it is why India’s Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, announced that he wanted to set up 25 new universities funded by the centre to augment the handful of centrally funded universities already in existence. It is also why he supports Vedanta University.
Whether Vedanta will succeed is debatable, according to Lord Parekh, the British peer who was educated in Bombay and the London School of Economics, and was later vice chancellor of the University of Baroda. First, he wonders where the quality staff will come from for a new university containing 100,000 students. Second, he asks who is going to manage a 40,000-strong faculty.
"Three Chinese universities have invited retired or semi-retired American professors and executive officers to staff their universities," he says. "Singapore is doing the same. These countries are paying well. They have the confidence to hire foreigners."
October 11th, 2007
Following are excerpts from a report in Telegraph on this.
The state government had initiated the land acquiring process with a 28.30-acre patch under Beladala mouza in the marine drive region.
Sun Green Valley, a tourism promoting company, moved the court challenging the state government’s decision and sought a stay on the allotment of the land to Vedanta Resources Corporation.
Yashobant Das, the counsel for Sun Green Valley, pointed out in the court that a tourism promoting project envisaging a water park and a museum was underway on the 28.30 acre of land when the government issued a notification for acquiring it for the proposed university. Though an appeal was filed for cancellation of the notification, the government turned it down.
The next hearing of the case would take place on November 14, the two-judge bench said, ordering an injunction on the land acquiring process for the proposed university till further orders.
The court also called for submission of the MoU signed between the Anil Agarwal Foundation and the state government to set up the university while issuing notices to the Puri collector.
Other news reports state that the stay order is only for those 28.30 acres. If that is the case then it is a comparatively small hurdle as Vedanta University can continue with its land acquisition sans this particular piece. However, if the stay order is for the whole land acquisition process then it would cause delay to the whole process. Following is Sambada’s report on this.
1 comment October 7th, 2007
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