School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi

School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi

Planning Block of the institute
Type	An “Institution of National Importance” Under an Act of Parliament (Ministry of HRD, Govt. of India)
Established	1941
Dean	Dean of Studies Prof. Dr.Mandeep Singh
Director	Chetan Vaidya
Location	New Delhi, India
Affiliations	NASA; NOSPlan
Website	Official website

School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi (SPA Delhi) is a premier higher education institute located in New Delhi, India specializing in education and research in the field of Planning and Architecture. It forms a part of the league along with the other two SPAs in India: the School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal and the School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada.

It is a National Resource Institute of India.

History

The School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi was started in 1941 as the Department of Architecture of the Delhi College of Engineering now the Delhi Technological University (DTU). In 1959 it was merged with the School of Town and Country Planning (established 1955), renamed to its current name and affiliated to the University of Delhi.^[1] In 1979 the institute was granted Deemed University status.^[2] In 2008, Government of India established two more SPAs, namely SPA Bhopal and SPA Vijaywada. In 2014, Lok Sabha passed a bill to make all the three SPAs "centre of excellence" on the pattern of IITs and IIMs.^[3] now it is a college of national importance.

Campus

The current SPA Delhi campus is split in two blocks one each for Planning and Architecture. Both these blocks are housed near ITO in Indraprastha Estate in New Delhi. The girls hostel is located in the ITO campus itself and the boys hostel and residential campus is located in New Friends Colony, Maharani Bagh, Delhi.

Library

The institute has an extremely organized resourceful library also providing online access to e-journals. The two libraries of SPA Delhi together house an invaluable collection of 80,157 books, built up over a period of five decades. This library is reputed to be Asia's finest specialised library dealing with the architecture, design and planning fields along with their allied disciplines. In addition to SPA Delhi's own faculty and students, the library is used intensively by a range of visiting research scholars from various cities in India and abroad. The architecture campus and planning campus libraries are also noted for their collection of Thesis Reports, Seminar Reports, Dissertation Reports, Technical Reports of various expert bodies and commissions, Census Reports, and so on.

Academics

The school offers planning, architecture and design courses both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. While the Bachelor of Architecture course is one of the oldest in the country, highly successful Bachelor of Planning course was started in 1989. Besides, the school offers 10 postgraduate programmes and two undergraduate programmes along with the doctoral programmes run by all the departments of studies.

Undergraduate degree programmes

• Bachelor of Architecture
• Bachelor of Planning

Postgraduate degree programmes

• Master of Architectural Conservation
• Master of Urban Design
• Master of Design (Industrial Design)
• Master of Planning with specialization in
  • Environmental Planning
  • Housing
  • Regional Planning
  • Transport Planning
  • Urban Planning
• Master of Building Engineering and Management
• Master of Landscape Architecture

Doctoral programmes

Each department of studies has a Departmental Research Committee and Head of the Department of Studies is its chairperson. Academic policy is decentralized to the extent that each department of studies has the Board of Studies, which makes proposals on department related academic matters. Chairperson of the Board of Studies is Head of the Department of Studies. Dean of Studies is the member on all Boards of Studies.^[4]

Student halls of residence

There are two hostels, one in the planning block of the campus and another one in Taimoor nagar, Maharani Bagh.

New campus

As of July 2013 the final plans for the new campus in Vasant Kunj has been finalised.

Notable alumni

• Arundhati Roy, writer studied at SPA,^[5] Joined SPA in 1976 and graduated in 1981.^[6]
• Anil Laul died 2016,^[7] a celebrated Indian Architect, noted for his low- cost architecture and use of contemporary elements in his designs.
• Baburam Bhattarai - 36th^[8] Prime Minister of Nepal.^[9]
• Eugene Pandala An Indian architect known for building with Environmental Sustainability.
• Gerard da Cunha An Indian architect of the famous Nrityagram.
• Hisila Yami, former Minister of Physical Planning, Government of Nepal
• Raj Rewal, one of the leading architects of India
• Revathi Kamath A pioneer of mud architecture in India
• Manjit Rai Agnihotri,^[10] popularly known as the 'Man of the Mountains' for his work in the Uttarkashi Earthquake Projects.

In popular culture

• The movie In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones (1989) co-written by Arundhati Roy is based on the life of students of the college and was filmed at SPA.^[11][12]
• The film society of the college, inmotion organizes one of the India's major short film festivals, Beta Movement^{[13][14][15][16][17]}

References

External links

• Official website

Coordinates: 28°37′50″N 77°14′44″E / 28.63056°N 77.24556°E / 28.63056; 77.24556

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