TEAM HERALD
bureau@herald-goa.com
The Valpoi bus stand and community hall developed and constructed by GSIDC for Department of Transport (DoT) and Kadamba Transport Corporation (KTC) has won the Best Architectural Design in the Recreational Design category at the prestigious Architectural and Design Awards-2013 instituted by Architecture + Design magazine. The project is designed by Rahul Deshpande and Associates, a Goa-based architectural firm.
The Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who is also the chairman of GSIDC, along with the Transport Minister Sudin Dhavlikar and the Managing director of GSIDC Sanjit Rodrigues have congratulated Rahul Deshpande and his team for this outstanding design and the award. The chief minister mentioned that this award for the GSIDC project only shows that we have enough talent in Goa which can design and execute projects of such high quality that can compete at any international platform and win. The leader of the opposition Pratapsing Rane also expressed his satisfaction on the design and congratulated the designer.
The complex set in Valpoi houses a bus stand, a community hall, a children’s play park and a joggers’ path. The design is inspired by the magnificent mountains and the accompanying clouds which hover over them at the Western Ghats where Valpoi is located, which the designer has attempted to capture in his design. The walls are fashioned in laterite stone, which were designed visually replicate the mountains while the roof has been conceived as a floating cloud, which itself is an engineering marvel.
The bus stand has 10 bus parking bays which are commuter friendly and one can walk straight into the bus. Provision for rickshaws, taxis and pilots has been made near the landing bay to facilitate easy access for passengers, as well as services and facilities such as toilets, drinking water, telephone booths, waiting areas, canteen, ticketing offices, restrooms, etc are located in close proximity to ensure passenger comfort. There is also adequate provision of parking for private vehicles.
The community hall is acoustically treated and completely air-conditioned with a seating capacity of 600 people. It contains changing rooms, a kitchen and a store room. The children’s park is spacious with a lot of play equipment. A joggers’ path surrounds the children’s play area. An orchard of various trees has also been planted in the area.
Rahul Deshpande is a structural engineer and practicing architecture, and has won several national and international awards. In fact, all the bus stands designed by him for the State have won awards, starting from Canacona, Cuncolim, Shiroda and now Valpoi.
He was the member on the task force which formulated the RP-2021 and apart from private practice, is an executive director on the Charles Correa Foundation, a non-profit organization which nurtures ideas in the context of urban design for a better Goa.
