Harrow International School, Bengaluru, designed by CP Kukreja Architects, has been honoured with the World’s Best Designed School Award in the Architecture – Educational Buildings category at the LOOP Design Awards 2025. Selected from over 550 entries across 49 countries, it is the only school worldwide to be recognised in the citation awards category this year.
The award, conferred by the Portugal-based LOOP Design Awards, underscores Harrow Bengaluru’s role in redefining institutional design by weaving together heritage, ecology, and pedagogy. The recognition positions India at the forefront of global conversations on how architecture can shape the future of education.
Harrow’s first campus in India extends the 450-year-old legacy of the institution into the subcontinent, reinterpreting its classical identity within the ecological and cultural context of Bengaluru. Anchored around a preserved natural water channel, the masterplan integrates academic, residential, cultural, and athletic facilities with landscaped courtyards, shaded pathways, and green spines, creating a seamless dialogue between built and natural environments.
“Education is as much about the spaces in which it unfolds as it is about the curriculum it imparts,” said Dr. Aseem Chauhan, Chairman, Governing Body, Harrow International School Bengaluru. “This recognition reaffirms our belief that schools must nurture not only academic excellence but also cultural awareness, ecological responsibility, and a sense of community.”
Dikshu C. Kukreja, Managing Principal, CP Kukreja Architects, added: “Architecture for education must cultivate imagination and resilience. At Harrow Bengaluru, we sought to create a milieu where heritage and modernity converse, where sustainability is embedded in every detail, and where the built environment itself becomes a teacher.”
The school’s design reimagines Harrow’s iconic brick architecture with locally sourced materials and Bengaluru’s traditions of palaces, gardens, and lakes. A 30-metre-high clock tower serves as both a symbolic anchor and an infrastructural innovation. Sustainable strategies, including water-sensitive planning, bioswales, shaded arcades, and north–south orientation of blocks, have earned the campus a USGBC Platinum rating, making it a benchmark for sustainable educational environments in India and beyond.
With this award, CP Kukreja Architects further strengthens its global standing as one of the world’s leading design practices. Founded in 1969 and today spanning offices in India, Vietnam, Japan, and the USA, the firm has delivered over 1,500 projects across 40+ countries, always rooted in contextuality and driven by sustainable innovation.
