Tata Steel on Wednesday threw open The Institute of Mathematics and Applications (IMA) in Orissa. The Rs 14-crore state-of-the-art institute-IMA, spread over 23 acres of land, has been designed by the famed architect Karan Grover.
The new learning centre will take in as many as 96 students from across the country, who would undertake activities like higher research in mathematics and applied mathematics. Apart from hostel, this 7000 sq meter institute will also have facilities like computer labs, class rooms, library rooms as well as residential accommodations for the faculty and researchers.
Tata Steel said that the IMA complex is not the first such education infrastructure by Tata Steel in Bhubaneswar. Earlier it had facilitated the complexes of Pathani Samanata Planetarium and XIMB in Bhubaneswar in addition to 200 numbers of schools and colleges that it had facilitated in the state of Orissa over last ten years.
Tata Steel Managing Director, B Muthuraman said, “Tata Steel is not just an industry. It is a state of mind. You can always build plants, roads and infrastructure but it is equally important to create education and an ambience for education to help people in their long term ambition.”
Grover, the architect, has synthesized ideas from the worlds of mathematics and architecture. The vision for this campus is based on concepts of traditional Indian architecture modified to suit the needs of a modern educational institute. Energy efficiency and sustainable architecture are of prime importance to the design of this campus. The layout of the institute is generated from the spiral lines of the “Golden Rectangle”, universally acclaimed proportions integrated into the project and to the local climatic conditions, to create an appropriate architectural vocabulary consisting of buildings interspersed with courtyards and connected with semi-open walkways, Tata Steel officials said.
This kind of architecture enables formal and informal interactions between students, teachers and visitors. The arrangement and orientation of the buildings and courtyards ensures maximum climatic efficiency. All classrooms are oriented so that the north and south facing walls are long, while the east and west facing walls, are shorter.