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bamboo construction

How Ekarth Studio Built IIT Madras’s Ilaiyaraaja Music Centre with Bamboo

Ekarth Studio’s IIT Madras music centre uses bamboo as its primary structural system, with pavilions, a reported 15-metre auditorium span and a craft-led build.

By Bettesworth Construction Team 2 min read
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Ekarth Studio designed and built the Maestro Ilaiyaraaja Centre for Music Learning and Research at IIT Madras in Chennai, using bamboo as the building’s primary structural system. The reported project brings together a series of pavilions for music teaching, rehearsal, recording, research and gathering, with a main auditorium designed around a 15-metre column-free span.

A music centre shaped as a group of pavilions

Dedicated to composer Ilaiyaraaja, the centre is intended to support music learning and research while creating connections among music, engineering and mathematics. Its pavilion forms draw on the three-lobed shape of the Bel Patra leaf, giving the complex a distinctive geometry rather than the appearance of a single conventional institutional block.

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The main auditorium is reported to seat 80 people. Dezeen describes its arches as nine metres high and its column-free span as 15 metres. E-architect reports the facility’s area as 10,000 square feet; that is a published project figure, not an independently verified measurement.

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How bamboo was used in the structure

Ekarth Studio described bamboo as the primary structural system, within a broader aim of creating a contemporary institutional building from predominantly natural materials. Reporting describes the use of different bamboo forms, including engineered bamboo, round culms, bundled splits and bundled sticks. Bamboo remains visible in parts of the finished building, alongside lime-based finishes, earthen surfaces and natural-fibre roof tiles.

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According to Dezeen’s account, artisans split, bent, bundled and joined the bamboo, mainly using basic carpentry tools. Structural engineering adapted those craft processes to the building’s institutional scale and long-span spaces. This account shows how craft and engineering were brought together on the project, but published reporting does not include technical drawings or an independent engineering evaluation.

Reported construction period and climate response

Ekarth Studio said the centre was completed in 11 months. E-architect also describes the studio’s response to humidity, cyclonic forces and environmental exposure. These are reported design and construction considerations; the available coverage does not establish how the finished building performs under measured conditions or provide an independent assessment of its resistance to cyclones or long-term durability.

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What the project demonstrates—and what it does not

The studio presents the centre as a demonstration of bamboo’s potential for complex geometry and large spans, and hopes to help move bamboo “from the fringes into the mainstream of the building industry,” as quoted by Dezeen. The auditorium’s reported span and the building’s use of multiple bamboo forms make the project a notable institutional-scale experiment in bamboo construction and craft.

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That ambition should be distinguished from independently demonstrated performance. The reviewed coverage does not publish a life-cycle assessment, a comparative carbon analysis, measured environmental performance or an independent structural report. It therefore supports describing the project’s materials, design intent and reported specifications—not claiming that the building is proven to have lower emissions, greater durability or superior structural performance than alternatives.

Quick Recap

Project facts at a glance

Detail Reported information
Project Maestro Ilaiyaraaja Centre for Music Learning and Research, IIT Madras, Chennai
Designer and builder Ekarth Studio
Primary structural material Bamboo, reported as the primary structural system
Facility area 10,000 square feet, reported by e-architect in 2026; not an independently verified measurement
Main auditorium 80 seats, with nine-metre-high arches and a 15-metre column-free span, reported by Dezeen in 2026
Construction period 11 months, as reported by Dezeen in 2026 from Ekarth Studio

Sources

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