A New Harmony

The Integral School was housed at Jayabheri Four Season for a decade, from 2015 to 2025. Plot 42–43 and the adjacent ground housed our children. The design of the place offered a certain tranquility and peace that, even as a visitor walking in for the first time, you could immediately sense. Open spaces, plenty of natural light—an ideal setting for a school like ours. It established a certain harmony, both within and without.

Come September 2025, we had no option but to exit the place. It held fond memories; we were comfortable there, a convenience of status quo, if you will. Every little nook and corner in the building was an opportunity for our children to play, to create their own use of the space—an opportunity to jump, for friends to squeeze together to adjust in the little space available.

An opportunity to hang a thread tied to an object from the top floor down to the ground floor and watch the pendulum swing.

An opportunity to hide under the sofa or behind the door, to walk into the kitchen and smell the food and enquire when it would be served, to run around the inner circumference of the building, to climb the walls, to perch on the side walls and say “hi” to anyone entering the building through the tiny little white gate. It was a home—a place where all of us could simply be.

Rather than the design dictating our conduct, we created our own way of being and living in this home. But the harmony had to be disturbed. We had to leave behind this harmony in order to create a new one. The old had to be done away with; the new had to be embraced. One of the many things that makes us unique is our new centre. Here, children will learn in a natural environment that is open to exploration.

With a design style that symbolises the “integral” philosophy, it features sustainable materials. In the integral education scheme of things, environment is critical to the building of an Integral School. The architecture and environment of the school have a direct impact on shaping the personality and psyche of the children. For that matter, it will shape the psyche of anyone who becomes part of the new campus.

It is about creating a psychophysical environment, simply because the psychological elements of the environment are inseparable from the physical. An Integral School enables real-life learning.

So, whether it is the extension of classrooms to the outdoors, recycling areas, frog ponds, kitchen gardens, solar kitchens, learning spaces for children, or outdoor laboratories, it all culminates in a learning matrix—or what may be termed a learn-scape. Nature has the capacity to nurture. A learning environment must truly be wedded to all the universal constituent elements of nature.

And because they are universal, they are deeply connected to the human psyche. These elements are: Earth, Space, Air, Fire, and Water—symbolizing stability, freedom, movement and mobility, illumination, knowledge and power, flexibility, fluidity, and creativity. As we move into the new campus, our first task will be to establish harmony with the external environment and then to establish harmony within ourselves.