The SDMC school has a building spread across 3 floors. It was a building that did not meet the all the norms set by the SDMC and was clearly not an engaging place for the children.

The project involved the children and parents in visualizing the school and finally worked towards converting the entire building as a learning aid using the BaLA (Building as a Learning Aid) approach and making it a safer, cleaner, well lit and ventilated building that not only creates an educational environment but is also a beautiful and a joyful place for children.

For instance, climbing stairs encouraged children to recognize numbers as each stair was numbered from 1 to 100. Each floor had a different art form depicting evolution of life on earth. The windows now have grills depicting fractions or shapes with counters that promote the development of fine motor skills. The windows also have unbreakable polycarbonate sheets instead of glass.

The classrooms are transformed places with sand-stone panels on the wall for children to write on as well as green boards at the children’s eye level.

The school corridors are learning and display spaces with notice boards and other teaching-learning materials.

The iron bars in the school corridor that gave it a prison like character have been replaced with hand crafted stone lattices that are in alignment with the heritage of Nizamuddin.

The widening of the staircase and creation of another door in each classroom has made the school building comply with the safety norms as specified by the SDMC.

The school has adequate toilets and drinking water facilities. All these have been designed keeping the children in mind – the wash basins are smaller and lower, the drinking water taps are at different levels.

Completing the physical improvement was the linking of the school to the adjacent park, which was reclaimed and landscaped as part of the project, the children even have access to an open green space.